Low Man's Lyric
by technicolour66
Summary: Fictitious take on Season 5. I started writing this before the season finale was aired - with the cliffhanger of Lucifer Rising it still makes sense, even though some of my assumptions about how the season would in fact end didn't come true.
1. Chapter 1

**Supernatural, fictitious Season 5**

This is my attempt at maybe a season 5 opener, or anyways, a story set after season 4.  
I have previously only mulled this over in my mind. I don't know if this will work out, because these are stories I tell myself when I can't sleep... actually have never put any of them in writing yet. So, welcome to one of my good night stories.

_**Episode 1 - Ain't Found A Way To Kill Me Yet**_

*Soundtrack*  
Phantom/Ghost – Born with a nervous breakdown  
Alice in Chains – Rooster  
Napoleon's Ghost – They're coming to take me away, haha  
David Bowie – Little Wonder  
Doors – Back Door Man  
Frank Zappa – Bobby Brown goes down

Chapter 1

_There was something he was supposed to do, somewhere he should be, but it was all so hazy. His world seemed engulfed in a strange kind of fog and he just couldn't concentrate.  
Someone was talking, somewhere far away. Woman… sweet Southern drawl. Nice voice. Nice…._

"Mr. Hagar, look at me, please."

Catherine du Lac was rapidly reaching the end of her tether. How on earth was she supposed to get this guy out of the funny farm, if they had drugged him to the gills?  
Hell, he wasn't even looking at her, not even after she'd been talking to him for 5 minutes.  
And why on earth did he have to pick such an idiotic alias for his fake id? She felt so stupid calling him Mr. Hagar over and over again.  
Her mind was racing. There simply was no time for this. The whole plan depended on her ability to get him out of there before the real shrink arrived.  
10 minutes and counting. No time for dilly dally. No time for the "nice" approach.  
She braced herself, put her hand on his bandaged arm and squeezed. Hard.  
He hissed. His head whipped around and he looked into her eyes for the first time.  
Excellent. Now for step two.  
She leaned closer. "We need to leave here. Fast."  
"Wh-what?" His voice sounded soft and uncertain, as if speaking was something he only vaguely remembered, as if he were out of practice.

"You need to get up. Now. And walk out of here with me. Don't argue, I'll explain everything later. There is no time now. Come on."  
He mumbled something indistinct.

Catherine let out an annoyed sigh, as she watched his eyes haze over again.  
For Pete's sake, this just couldn't be true. What kind of a fucked up assignment was this? But then again, the Council had never given her anything BUT fucked up assignments in the first place, so why should this one be any different? Never mind, this was the last one, anyway. Just get this man out of here safely and she and the Council would finally be quits.

ETA Dr. Lebowski 8 more minutes.  
4 minutes until they would be outside, in the best case. But this was just anything but the best case. It wasn't even a good case. It was just plain hopeless.  
Catherine tried not to let show just how frantically she was looking for… well, anything at all that would help. One patient was in a wheel chair and for a fleeting moment Catherine contemplated using that for the escape. But how would she get the other patient out of it and her charge in it and how would she explain that to the orderly? Let's face it, Catherine, she thought, there just is no other way. She would have to do it her way.  
Magic in plain sight of a gadzillion people. Just perfect. Just what she needed. But maybe the state he was in would be an advantage here, after all. He might just be so much more susceptible to her "persuasion". Maybe she wouldn't need anything flashy at all and nobody would notice.

"Come!"  
The art of it all lay in giving the verbal command and pushing him at the same time with magic. Catherine had always frowned upon all those pretentious people who kept trying to do magic with Latin incantations. It just plain wasn't necessary, any odd language would do and in actual fact one which you really speak well would work heaps better. But no, they would insist on chanting nonsense in broken Latin…  
"COME!"  
She put a little more push into it.  
He got up - a little unsteadily, but he did it.  
"Walk with me."  
She just kept on walking, nodded at the orderly and steered her charge towards the first of many doors. Locked, of course.

The orderly had been told as she arrived that she would try to take her patient outside to try out some confrontation therapy approach. He opened the door without further ado.  
"Could you come with us and open the rest of the doors for us, too, please?" She gave him her most simpering girlie smile. Worked like a charm, even though there actually was none involved at all. Ah, hormones. Just as reliable as her other powers.  
Powered on by a few more smiles, the orderly did a great job.

He not only dutifully unlocked all doors and held them open so she could steer her charge through them without it being too obvious that she was pulling his strings and he was doing the obedient little muppet dance, no, the orderly also told the guard at the front door to let them through.  
"Where you takin' him?" the grumpy old man asked.  
"Just outside to his car. It's a new approach, kind of like shock therapy, if you know what I mean."  
The guy obviously didn't, but felt he had done his duty by asking the question in the first place. Thank God for small mercies and people who don't get paid enough to do a good job.  
He unlocked the door so slowly that Catherine thought she was going to have to beat him to a bloody pulp with his huge key ring. The seconds were ticking by and still she was nowhere near the damned car.  
Finally the door opened.  
Now don't screw this up, Catherine. Say goodbye nicely and thank the guys.

They made it to the car just as Dr. Lebowski's beige Honda pulled into the parking lot.  
Catherine shoved her charge inside the black '67 Impala and slammed the door shut. You had to hand it to the man, that car kicked ass, she thought as they drove off.  
The engine was giving off a steady, post-orgasmic purr and she could feel the power as she accelerated onto the freeway.

"this old road  
leads to the palace of wisdom  
I still miss them

their names are legion on my way  
come in and stay all through the night  
and hold me tight

please do not leave me anymore  
it's such a bore  
and believe me

you never know when it's enough  
until you know when it's more than enough  
born with a nervous breakdown"

Chapter 2

Dean groaned.  
He had just tried to open his eyes to what appeared to be the worst hangover of his career. Light was dancing on the Impala's dashboard. He could hear traffic roaring close by, loud as thunder. Birds were chirping and it felt like they were driving spikes into his temples.  
He moved in the seat a little and discovered that movement was making things worse. His head seemed to be filled with some unpleasant liquid and even the tiniest motion upset the delicate balance and caused the liquid to slosh around. Sloshing lead to nausea and nausea lead to lightspeed opening of the car door. Good thing they were parked.  
As he was losing stuff from way down deep inside his digestive system, a cool hand touched his forehead.  
A vaguely familiar female voice said: "Easy, Dean, easy."  
Brilliant. What's worse than the hangover from hell? Living the consequences in front of a woman. Possibly last night's conquest.  
Or not?  
Dean just couldn't remember. Even trying to get his brain to work was instantly punished by more nausea.

Sweating, he finally sank back in the seat and tentatively opened his eyes again. He was looking at an exceptionally beautiful woman. Hair like polished chestnuts.  
"Out of your league, boy, way out of your league", he thought.  
Grey eyes swept over him.  
"Better?"  
"Kinda. Must've been some night, eh?"  
"Not really. Mostly, I was driving and you were sleeping your meds off."  
Meds?  
She walked around the car and got in.  
Wait a minute, what was she doing, driving the Impala?  
Dean sat upright. Nobody drove the Impala, except him and… never mind.  
What the hell was going on?  
Then he noticed his bandaged arms and suddenly wished he still wouldn't remember.

_Better do this right, bitch.  
Car's in storage. Got a letter saying I want to be cremated. Money for it, too.  
Motel room, nobody's going to come in here until the morning._

_Bobby, should write to Bobby, at least.  
No. No way.  
What would I say, anyway? That I can't do this anymore? That it is too difficult to even get up in the morning these days? That there is nothing left for me in this world?  
Yeah, right, Bobby would totally get that._

_Quit whining, bitch.  
I'll take the shotgun.  
Mouthful of water, big caliber bullet, bang, end of story._

_I just can't do this anymore.  
I don't care if anyone will say I took the coward's way out. I'm just past giving a crap about what other people say.  
I can't do this anymore.  
What if I screw it up? What if I end up being a vegetable in some stupid ass hospital. If I as much as twitch, I might not kill myself, I'll just end up a basket case._

_If I take my knife and slice down deep from the crook of my arm to my wrist, I'll bleed dry real quick. Nobody's gonna come in here until the morning, nobody. No way would they find me in time._

_God, that hurts…………………………………………………………………………………….._

He swallowed convulsively.  
What had happened then? There were just some hazy images of hospital rooms and such. Dean just couldn't remember anything clearly after he had blacked out from blood loss.  
"You damned fool" he thought, "can't even get that right, can you? Simple job of offing yourself and with all the equipment you had at hand, you just couldn't get the job done, could you?"

"Who are you and where are you taking me?" he asked.  
"Well, when I first introduced myself, the lights were on, but there was nobody home so, hello, my name is Catherine du Lac and I am taking you to see some people who need your help."  
"In case you haven't noticed, I am in no shape to help anyone and I am actually not even interested in that kind of gig anymore."  
Dean watched her handle the car. She was driving fast and looked like she belonged at the wheel of the old muscle car. He was impressed despite himself.  
She frowned and said: "I actually don't much care about what you want at this point. I have a job to do and that is to bring you to Savannah to talk to people. What happens then is none of my business."  
"And these people are….?"  
"They will tell you. Or not. But I for sure won't."  
"Then what makes you think I'll come along peacefully?"  
"Oh, let me see… maybe the fact that right now, I am at the wheel, plus I got you into the car, plus I might be armed and dangerous and a black belt to boot? Or maybe I'm someTHING else entirely?"  
Dean chewed on his lip.  
It didn't much matter anyway. Whatever would happen, there was just nothing left that hadn't been done to him already, nothing that could scare him, except having to go on with his life as it was.  
It had all gone to pieces. What right did he have to live in the first place? He had done awful things. There just was no forgiving all that. He couldn't live with himself, he couldn't bear to look at Sammy, it was just all over. What good was he still? He might as well just let that woman take him wherever and with a little luck, the job they wanted him on would finish him off without much of an effort.  
Dean leaned back and closed his eyes.  
The drone of the Impala's engine sang him to sleep.

When he awoke, they were parked again. Catherine was sitting on the hood, eating a sandwich. Dean got out of the car. His stomach had settled and he suddenly noticed how hungry he was. Catherine wordlessly nudged a bag towards him and handed him a coffee.  
Half way through his sandwich, Dean looked at her.  
"Are you someTHING?"  
She laughed.  
"It all depends." She said.  
"On what?"  
"On how black and white your world is, Dean. Hunters have an unfortunate tendency to see things neatly categorized like that. Either you're good, or you're evil. You're human, or you're not. No room for shades of grey, no room for how things really are."  
"I can see black alright; it's just the white that is gone. Or maybe it's not black I see after all, maybe everything is just indistinct shades of really, really dark grey."  
"Well, Dean, that's reality for you. Finding out that life just isn't that easy, that clear cut. Sometimes, it's just not going to be a call between 'either' and 'or', sometimes it might be 'and' or something else entirely."  
Dean laughed. It was a hard, unpleasant laugh. "Catherine, just tell me what the hell you are and quit the fucking philosophy prep talk."  
"Thing is, I am something you have never encountered before and I don't want you to go to full hunter mode on me."  
Catherine paused briefly.  
"I'm a witch."  
Dean laughed again in disbelief. "Doll, I have met more witches than I can count."  
"No, Dean, you really haven't. We keep ourselves apart. We try our utmost not to get noticed."  
"I have hunted wi…" Catherine made a sharp, cutting gesture with her hand, cutting him short.  
"You have hunted spellmongers. People who run on borrowed powers. People who try to wrangle some juice from any source they can lay their hands on, even from demons. Those aren't witches, believe me."  
Catherine paused.  
How dare he think he knew the first thing about witches. And why the hell was she telling him in the first place, when all her life she had been protecting herself?

Dean was unsure what to make of this. The sources they had been using didn't say anything about witches being something other than what they had hunted so far. And what then did "real" witches do then, if not use spells?  
"A witch, as opposed to those people you have encountered so far, runs on his or her own power. Yes, we do use spells to focus our power, but we are running the show, not profiting from someone else's knowledge or power. We make spells, not memorize other people's. We all got a gift. It's hereditary and we are really a very tightly knit community. There are different sorts of power a witch can have. I can't tell you about all that – in fact, I've already said too much as it is."  
"And these people who so desperately want to see me that you abducted me from a mental hospital are..?"  
"The Witches' Council. Kind of like the elders, or the witches' senate, or something like that. They are the law and I owed them. I bring you to them, then we're quits."  
Dean thought this was all so much crap. What was the difference, really? The women they had met before had done magic.  
Why should it be something else entirely with the "real" witches? Power is power, no matter the source.  
Well, whatever. At the end, it all didn't matter much anymore.  
Catherine kept her eyes on the road. Just a little bit longer and she would be free to leave.  
Finally.

Chapter 3

Catherine parked the Impala in front of a picture-book Southern mansion.  
As she killed the engine, she turned to Dean and said: "Do yourself a favour, Dean. Negotiate a good price for your services. These people can pay you in currency or other things and no matter what you choose, they are loaded."  
"Yeah, whatever." Dean wondered how these Council guys would feel about just letting him die in peace, like he set out to do.  
They walked up the porch and Catherine rang the bell.  
A liveried butler opened the door, gave a short bow and led them wordlessly into the hall.  
He took their jackets and Dean marveled at the way Catherine could be utterly sexy in an outfit that left not even the tiniest stretch of skin bare.  
His mouth watered at the sight of her in a tight black long-sleeved top and black jeans. Must be getting a tad better, he thought wryly, if he noticed that again.

A woman walked down the stairs.  
Late fifties, Dean thought. Well-preserved, coiffed and pampered - complete with expensive designer dress and a string of pearls that could have kept team Winchester in bread and board for a year - and cold as ice.  
She inclined her head in greeting, said "Catherine." She managed to convey such loathing wrapped in the utmost politeness that Dean marveled at how that was possible.  
"Helen." said Catherine and Dean realized it must be a female thing, because Catherine was just as icily polite and was yet oozing such loathing at the same time that he shivered.  
Somehow, he wished he hadn't changed into jeans, shirt and leather jacket, but had dug up one of the cheap suits from the trunk when they had stopped for lunch. But then again, what the heck. That woman's disapproval meant nothing to him.  
"Dominic awaits you." said Frosty the Snowbitch with a curt gesture towards a door to the right.  
They went inside.  
Well, here's Mr. Snowbitch, thought Dean as the tall, grey haired man behind the oak desk rose to greet them.  
"There he is, Dominic," said Catherine and turned to go.  
"Your job is not done yet," said the man coldly.  
"Yes it is," spat Catherine, "the deal was I bring you Dean Winchester, nothing more, nothing less."  
"Wrong. The deal is Winchester brings back the codex with you and then and only then will you be free to go."  
Dean expected Catherine to go ballistic, but she was silent. Her jaw was clenched, as were here fists.  
"Bully for her then, old man, since I have no intention of bringing back some codex from somewhere, with or without her." Dean snapped.  
"Oh yes, you will," said Mr. Snowbitch silkily. "You see, Mr. Winchester, if you don't, our lovely Catherine will be sent back to her family, gagged and bound. Tell our guest what they will do with you, Catherine."  
Catherine swallowed, white as a sheet, but said "That is nothing that concerns you, Dean."  
"I tend to disagree, Catherine. Hold her!" At the barked order, two burly men came out of nowhere and took hold of Catherine.  
"Hey, you, what the fuck are you playing at!" Dean yelled and started to turn to help her, as he himself was grabbed from behind by two more bullies in black.  
"Take a look, Mr. Winchester."  
With that, Dominic sliced Catherine's top open with a mean-looking knife.  
Dean gasped.  
Catherine's torso was covered in scars. Deliberate scars, as if someone had sliced into her to cut a geometric pattern. Dean was appalled, shocked beyond words.  
"This is what her father did the last time. Can you imagine what will happen when we deposit her on their porch, all tied up and helpless?"  
Dean couldn't say a word.  
"You, Mr. Winchester, WILL bring back the Scaglia codex and you, Catherine, WILL help him do it. Our future depends on it – and so does yours, make no mistake."  
Dominic motioned for the brutes to let go. Dean swore and shrugged out of his denim shirt and wordlessly handed it to Catherine.  
"Where is that bloody codex and how do we get it?" Dean snapped.  
"A Council member stole it. Last we heard, he is in Sinai, South Dakota."  
Dean looked at Catherine.  
She was still pale, but shot him a look that was clearly shouting "no".  
He didn't care.  
He couldn't risk the old man making good on his ugly words and sending her back to where she clearly was tortured by a madman that happened to be her father and might be killed next time around.  
"Okay. I'll do it. She goes free when she shows up with the codex. Deal?"  
"Deal, Mr. Winchester." The bastard had the chutzpah to smile.  
Dean wanted to ram his fist right into that smile.  
Badly.

Out in the hall, the silent butler handed them their jackets and opened the door for them.  
"Where to now?" Dean asked.  
Catherine shrugged her shoulders.  
"Well, I'm beat. Know any cheap, clean hotels around?"  
"I thought cheap and clean was mutually exclusive", Catherine smiled. "But we can crash at a friend's place. He's out of town."  
They drove in silence.  
Dean was quiet, because he simply didn't know what to say. How do you carry out a conversation with someone about whom you just learned something so shocking? Plus, there was that codex issue. He'd have to call Bobby about that. He needed some research done and fast.  
Catherine didn't speak, because if she did, she might just lose it so badly, she couldn't guarantee for anything anymore.  
She should have known how devious and utterly unscrupulous Dominic was. Yet, the Council wasn't even remotely the bad guys in this game.  
Her family was.  
They had gone so far off what was good and right that even power-hungry Dominic and his stuck-up bitch of a wife looked like angels next to them.

They arrived at Catherine's friend's place within a few minutes. Catherine unlocked the door. As the lights came on, Dean found himself standing in a very nice apartment. Bookshelves lined the wall, but there was also a large flatscreen tv.  
"Bedroom or sofa?" Catherine asked wearily.  
Dean started to raise an eyebrow, but then thought better of it and said "Sofa. That way I can watch some tv."  
"Goodnight then", said Catherine and went into the bedroom.  
Dean found some beer in the fridge and settled down on the sofa with the remote control.  
"Cool, football…."

Chapter 4

"Come on, Bobby, pick up the freakin' phone!"  
Dean was pacing. Finally, he heard Bobby's voice. "Yeah?"  
"S'me, Dean. I need you to do some research for me."  
"Dean, for fuck's sake, where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for weeks!"  
"Bobby, got no time for this discussion now. Can you look something up for me? Awesome. The Scaglia codex. No, that's all I know. Call me back when you find something, 'kay? Yeah, thanks, bye"  
Dean took a deep breath. He couldn't talk to Bobby. Bobby would know he wasn't okay. Bobby always knew too much for his own good.  
All Dean wanted, really, was to crawl back under the covers and the rest of the world be damned.  
The darkness was threatening to swallow him again, but he couldn't let it, not now, anyway. He was just exhausted, so exhausted. Bone weary, that was the right expression.  
He needed to find that damned codex, so Catherine could be safe. And maybe with one more person saved, his overall good deeds bank account would suffice so he would be at peace after someone salted and burned his remains.  
Catherine came out of the kitchen with two steaming mugs of coffee.  
"Who was that?"  
"An old friend. He'll do some research for us. What can you tell me about the Scaglia codex?"  
"That is seems to be so important that Dominic Dupree forgets his manners because it's gone."  
"Oh come on, Cat, you can do better than that!"

"No, sorry, I can't and that's the truth. The codex is nothing more than a rumour to me. It was kept in the restricted area of the Council library and its use was limited to the Council members. Rumour has it that it contains information on the true source of magic, which – if it should fall into the wrong hands – could lead to disaster. And here's where the rumours diverge. One school of gossip says the disaster would be that all magic would be killed, the other says that magic would become a free-for-all and then – and here the two schools agree again - the world would likely come to an end. That's all I can tell you."  
Dean nodded, then stared into his coffee.  
The outside world went away.

Catherine watched as Dean slipped away again. He did that a lot. In between, he would seem fine. Normal. But then he would start to stare at something and he would be so far gone inside himself it scared her.  
How could she try to retrieve the codex with someone who was most likely still suicidal, or at the very least seriously depressed and bordering on a nervous breakdown. Of course, she knew the stories about how Dean and his brother had stopped Lucifer from rising, but the mere basics didn't say anything about the price they paid.

_You think you can stop me?_

_The voice echoed inside his head. There just was no stopping it. He could hear Sammy screaming, but there was nothing he could do for his brother anymore. Nothing left to do but …_

_Brimstone smell. Pain. Despair._

Catherine put her hand on Dean's shoulder.  
He flinched.  
"Another coffee, Dean?"  
"Ah… yeah, thanks, Cat."  
Nobody had called her that since her grandmother passed away.  
She liked it.  
It sounded good, the way he said it.  
He had looked shocked at her scars, but not disgusted, like everyone else. And there had been no pity in his eyes, just rage. That was good, too. Maybe she could work with him after all. It seemed to be getting easier to call him out of this hole he crawled into.  
His cell rang.  
"Bobby?" His voice sounded alert again. Good.  
"Okay. Yeah, got some paper right here. Okay. How the fuck do you spell that? G-U-I-S-E-P-P-E. Yeah, got that. Guiseppe Scaglia. Italian alchemist you say? Renaissance Florence? Okay, what else? Rumoured to possess inside knowledge of demons, witches, all things that go bump in the night. And the codex? Something like dad's diary, listing all things he ever learned? Okay. Sinai, South Dakota, as far as we know. Yeah, thanks. Much appreciated. No, I'm fine. I AM FINE, BOBBY! Yeah, bye."  
He turned to Catherine.  
"We go pick up Bobby. This codex thing could be huge. Very useful. We need backup, I think."  
"Can he be trusted?"  
"Cat, he's the closest thing to a father I have, as I keep telling people. I trust him absolutely." Even after all that. They had done what needed to be done. No blame calling, no nothing.

Cat was driving again. She had cut short his protests by demanding he make a fist. He couldn't. His arms hurt like blazes.

"Ain't found a way to kill me yet  
Eyes burn with stinging sweat  
Seems every path leads me to nowhere"

He loved that song. The way it slowly built, the driving power of it.

"Here they come to snuff the rooster  
Yeah here come the rooster, yeah  
You know he ain't gonna die  
No, no, no, ya know he ain't gonna die"

Cat was singing along with it. And boy, did she have pipes.  
Dean grinned.  
"What?"  
"Nothing, please continue. I like it."  
"Yeah, right."  
"No, seriously. Rooster's one of my fav songs. And you REALLY know how to sing!"  
"Had to. I ran away from home when I was 16. Sang in bars to make a living."  
"Wow. I bet you made a killing."  
"I did alright."  
Fields and woods flew by, occasional towns and villages. When dusk fell, they tried to find a motel for the night. No single rooms available anywhere. They at least found a twin in some really banged up place. The night was short and uncomfortable.  
As they neared Sinai the day after, Dean's phone rang.  
"Bobby? Which motel? The Truman's, just off Main Street? What room? 'kay, meet you there."

Catherine parked the Impala in front of the dingy motel.  
"Room 2-12, that's it." Dean knocked.  
A tall young man with tousled hair opened the door and said "Hiya, Dean."  
Dean turned on his heels and went back to the car.  
The young man looked pained and said to Catherine "Hi, I'm Sam. Dean's brother."  
"Hi Sam. I'll be right back, let me just check on Dean, please."  
Dean sat in the car. The 1000 mile stare again.

"_I need this, Dean. I need this. Please. Let me go. Oh God, it hurts. Please…. Please, Dean….."  
The screams. They just wouldn't stop.  
"And if he dies?" "Then he'll at least die as a man."_

_Screams. Going on and on._

"Dean? Dean, look at me, will ya?"  
His eyes slowly focused on Catherine.  
"Can you stay with me now? They are waiting for us at the motel. I think your brother Sam wants to help."  
"He should get lost."  
"Dean…."  
"I don't want to see him."  
"Okay. I'll tell him. Stay here, okay? Don't… just don't, Dean, please."  
Cat was… it was strange. She could reach him, even when he got lost.  
Dean rubbed his forehead. He had a splitting headache and just wanted some peace and quiet and a beer.  
Oh yes, a nice, cold beer.

Chapter 5

Catherine kept a close watch on Dean in his chair by the window. He was clutching a bottle of beer like a life saver. He was pointedly staring out of the window, but she was glad to see that he at least hadn't wandered off into the dark recesses of his mind again.  
"Come on, Catherine, stop that Florence Nightingale shit. You can't afford to care about the guy, you have far too much problems of your own", she thought.  
Still, there was something about him that pushed at her defenses. Something whispered that Dean was important in some way and that she should make sure he was okay.  
Catherine determinedly ignored that whisper.  
Dean Winchester clearly was an SEP, a somebody else's problem – and the sooner she got that thought fixed in her brain, the healthier for her.

Sam was sitting at this laptop, doing some more research and Bobby had gone for some supplies – whatever that might mean in Hunter terms.  
They had gotten the last room in the motel, a big family suite - oh Lord, how grand that sounded and how banged up the reality of it really was - with two bedrooms, kitchenette and living room. There was some sort of farmers' convention going on in town and even had they had the money to spare, there just wasn't any other room available anywhere. In fact, they had been lucky that Bobby and Sam had gotten into town earlier and secured this one.  
Did that stubborn prick know how to bow to necessity? No. Catherine had had to run from the Impala to the room to deliver carefully edited versions of Dean's snide remarks.  
After a while, she had just refused to take this stupidity one single step further and had told Dean that he could sleep in the car, if he liked, but she for sure wouldn't.  
Strangely enough, at that point Dean gave up arguing and simply started to pretend his brother wasn't there.

Catherine sighed and considered just how effective the whole thing was going to be. Okay, the badly damaged leftovers of a hunter she was forced to work with had at least had enough brains left to call in the cavalry, but she didn't know Bobby and with Dean refusing to even speak to Sam, he was pretty much out of the picture altogether.  
And how should they be able to retrieve the codex from Danny Larson, when he had apparently already left town? At least, they had checked all accommodation, they had asked at the gas station, the diner and the stores, but nobody had seen the man.  
Well, if she was going to be spending the day in a lousy motel room with these two, at least she would have some music.  
Catherine plugged her iPod into its mobile sound dock and turned her favourite playlist on.

"Stinky weather, Fat shaky hands  
Dopey morning Doc, Grumpy gnomes  
Little wonder then, little wonder  
you little wonder, little wonder you"

Dean jumped.  
What on earth was that?????? Was that supposed to be music? Some crazy fuck's idea of music? Drum and base and, like, the screechiest guitar, ever. Strange voice with a British accent singing some lyrics that made no sense at all.  
He turned around to tell Cat to turn the damn noise down, but she had her back turned to him and was actually dancing.  
She shimmied, damn it. SHIMMIED. And it did funny things to his stomach.

Little wonder then, little wonder, you little wonder, little wonder you….

Catherine did a little hop and turned around, to see Dean staring at her, expression unreadable.  
"What?" she snapped.  
"Nothin'. Just enjoying the show, sister."  
He did the eyebrow on her. Jesus, that man was just too much.  
Judging from the tape collection – yeah, that's right, tape collection, could he be more caveman, if he tried? – in the car, Dean apparently had never listened to anything that came out later than the 80ies.  
Okay, no, cut that, one song from the friggin' 90ies at least he seemed to know, he had proven that already. But still. She was stuck in a dingy motel room with the king of mullet rock.  
Catherine yanked the pod out of the dock and started digging through her bag for her headphones.  
"Since I got your attention for a change, what are we going to do next? I mean, we don't even know if Danny ever was here in the first place and he sure as hell doesn't seem to be here now."  
"Well, we would have a better chance of finding this… Danny… if you would give us some more info on the dude. What does he do, what does he like, who does he hang with?"  
Danny was about the last thing she wanted to be talking about. Ever. But he did have a point.  
"Danny likes loud music, fast women and hard liquor. Sound like anyone you know?"  
Dean pointedly toasted her with his beer. "Nah."  
Sam looked up from his laptop and said "Guess the best bet then would be to wait until tonight and hit the bars. Right?"  
Dean kept staring at Catherine. The silence spoke volumes.  
"Sounds like a plan," she said.  
"Whatever." Dean turned towards the window again. His vision blurred.

"_What do you want Dean? Just tell me. Anything. I'll make it happen."  
The voice was so persuasive. It engulfed him, made him feel safe, happy even. It would be so easy to just give in to the silky tones, so easy to just ask for… that….  
"Ah. Yes. I see. I can give you that, Dean. All you ever wanted. I can make all the pain go away."  
NO!  
No.  
No bargaining. No surrendering to evil this time.  
No.  
Not again. Nothing good would come of it.  
Ah, but the pain was so bad.  
Please, please, let me be strong enough.  
Please.  
PLEASE!  
God.  
NO._

Somebody was talking. Bobby was back with the supplies. Good.  
Catherine was looking at him strangely. So she had noticed he had had another of those episodes, then.  
Dean didn't know what she was all about.  
Sometimes, she seemed to want to bitch slap him three ways from Sunday and then she seemed concerned.  
Given the situation she was in, the former sentiment was probably genuine and the latter merely due to the fact that he was supposed to help her get free of the Council.  
Whatever.  
Word of the day, eh? He could make that his new motto. Hell, it was short enough so he could remember and it really expressed neatly how he felt about the world at large.  
Whatever.

Chapter 6

"You man, eat your dinner  
eat your pork and beans  
I eat more chicken  
than any man ever seen  
yeah, yeah  
I'm a back door man, wha  
The men don't know  
But the little girl understand"

That was their 6th bar now.  
Who'd have thought that a mean little town like this would be so rich in watering holes?  
Apart from the fact that Catherine had been groped by desperate men pretending to be studs more often than she cared to remember, was desperately wishing she could just turn the next guy who leered at her into a toad with diarrhea and that Dean had gotten himself consecutively more drunk with each stop, they had achieved nothing.  
At least here, the music was decent. She prayed fervently to Jimmy Morrison's ghost that it would stay that way.  
Dean came back, drinks in hands. "Beer for Bobby, beer for Dean and… a Coke for Cat. There ya go."  
He gave Cat a puppy dog look, as if he expected to be applauded for the huge feat of buying them drinks. Well, as long as he didn't start wagging his tail, they'd all be right as rain. Good boy, Dean, good boy.  
"Hey, c'mon, Cat, how about some dancin'?"  
Dean grinned at her lopsidedly.  
She was about to tell him to go stuff himself, when some huge biker brute made a grab for her.  
She quickly moved out of the way, grabbed Dean by the front of his shirt and dragged him over to the tiny, crowded dance floor. Well, maybe it wasn't even a proper dance floor, maybe it was just some drunks getting in the mood for dancing and deciding that this was the spot for it.  
Never mind, anything away from those groping hands and leering eyes would do.

The next song came on and Cat started laughing out loud when she recognized it.  
Dean looked at her uncomprehendingly.  
"Never mind, Dean," she said, put her arms on his shoulders and started to move with him to the music.

"Hey there, people, I'm Bobby Brown  
They say I'm the cutest boy in town  
My car is fast, my teeth are shiny  
I tell all the girls they can kiss my heinie"

Dean moved with her.  
It felt good beyond belief.  
For the first time since he woke up with his entrails in a twist, he felt actually something like normal. He took a deep breath.  
Catherine briefly contemplated pointing the lyrics out to Dean, but then again, given the popularity of the song in bars around the world and the way men tried to make their move in time with the music, it was doubtful that Zappa could be understood by your average white male at all. Still, it felt good to be dancing with him. He was keeping his hands where they should be, didn't try anything funny and looked.. calm, she thought. He had even closed his eyes.  
When the song ended, she was sorry that she had to let go of him. He had made her feel safe – and she hadn't felt that in a very long time.  
They went back to Bobby.  
"I go talk to the guy tending bar. See if he has seen our man." Bobby said, looking a little less worried than he had before.  
"Let me do it, Bobby," Catherine said. "If I lay on a big sob story, he might tell me something, even if he wouldn't tell you a thing."

She finally caught the bartender's eye.  
"'Scuse me, did you happen to see this man?"  
For the umpteenth time this night, she shoved Danny's photo from their holidays in Florida at a total stranger.  
"What if I did, doll?"  
"He's my fiancé, I need to find him."  
"Why?"  
"None of your business."  
"Well, doll, then I guess it's none of my business to tell you squat."  
"He ditched me at the altar. I am pregnant. I am broke. Zat good enough for ya?"  
Cat sniffled a bit for show, neatly conveying the impression that she was half furious and half desperate and fully emotional. In short, one helluva scary woman.  
The Bartender nodded.  
"Good. Now cut the crap and just tell me: Yes or no, have you seen this man?"  
"Yeah, he was here, about an hour ago. With two biker types and a chick in leather."  
"Did they say anything about where they were going?"  
"Something about going back to Looshes' place? That's what it sounded like, I think."  
"Any idea where that is?"  
"Sorry, doll, ain't got a clue."

Catherine made her way back across the crowded room to Dean and Bobby.  
"C'mon, we got a lead."  
"What's the friggin' hurry, I haven't even finished my beer yet!"  
Dean was swaying slightly. The evening started to look better and better. Why spoil this with going off on a wild goose chase now? Especially when Cat might dance with him again, if he played his cards right.  
Cat turned around without a word and started to march out of the bar.  
Bobby grabbed Dean by the scruff, dragged him out and stuffed him unceremoniously into the backseat of the Impala.  
Catherine drove back to the motel.  
She was strumming her fingers on the wheel impatiently.  
Sam would have to check for "Looshes' place" whatever that was.  
Loosh. Okay. They finally had a lead.  
Yes, things were decidedly looking up.

"I just don't know, did you hear that right?"  
"Well, it's what the bartender heard, but it was damned noisy in that place."  
Sam sighed, sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin.  
Catherine also sighed, then frowned. "Wait a minute, Sam, try L-U-C-I-U-S. Lucius. It's a pretty rare first name, so if that's what it is, we should…"  
"Got it. Lucius Wainwright, one of the town's founding fathers. He built a house and it's right here." Sam tapped the laptop screen.  
"'Kay, team, less go." Dean was on his feet already, heading towards the door.  
Bobby shot a look at Catherine, clearly doubting the wisdom of letting Dean come along.  
She closed her eyes for a moment, then shrugged and walked out after Dean.  
Yes, okay, the man could get his butt kicked, there could even be terrible things happening to him. But better that then have him sit there with his brain in neutral again.

Sam followed Catherine out.  
As she passed Dean standing next to the Impala, she leaned over quickly and opened the door.  
Dean got in wordlessly.  
Sam didn't really know what to make of this, but he didn't comment.

Dean groaned inwardly.  
So she had noticed how he had fumbled with the door handle. His hands just wouldn't do what he wanted them to. Still hurt like blazes whenever he moved his arms.  
Why on earth was he insisting on going with them in the first place? He was more than a little drunk and totally useless in anything involving his hands.  
"Good thinking, Dean. Can't use your hands, so you go and incapacitate your head, too, to even things out. Shit."  
And what had Sammy done to deserve riding shotgun? He shouldn't even be with them.  
Bobby sat in the back seat next to him and Dean swore he could feel the anger oozing from the man. Bobby was mad as hell, Dean knew.  
He didn't take disappearing acts well and Dean's had even been intended to be a permanent one. He just couldn't talk to Bobby, no way.  
What should he tell him?  
"Bobby, I couldn't take the whole shit anymore and so I tried to off myself? But, see I fucked up even that and here I am, a total mess that got rescued from the funny farm by Cat?"  
No way. No effing way.  
He stared out of the window.

Chapter 7

The house looked spooky.  
No, Catherine corrected herself, it made spooky-looking houses look like Barbie's dreamhouse.  
"Bobby, check the front, I'm gonna take the back." With that, Dean pushed past her.  
Yeah, right, good idea, Dean. Brilliant. Cat nodded to Bobby and ran after Dean.  
She caught up with him halfway around the house.  
"Are you nuts?" she hissed  
"Why? I've done this a thousand times, I know what I'm doing."  
"Yeah, right. Only you seem to have conveniently forgotten that you can hardly move your hands and are three sheets to the wind to boot. So, were you planning on TALKING the bad guys to death? For you sure as hell can't fire a gun and wouldn't last a minute in a hand to hand!"  
Catherine couldn't remember ever being this angry. She paused to draw a breath. When she opened her mouth to continue, Dean shushed her with an impatient move of his hands.  
"Look. A light in the basement."  
He hunkered down to peer through the dirty window.  
Cat went down next to him.  
Danny and a sallow-faced man in black were having an argument, while the biker guys the bartender had mentioned were messing with the girl.  
There was a wrapped parcel on the table. Cat could only assume this was the codex.  
Cat strained to watch the men's faces. Lip reading would be so much easier if those two would simply keep looking at the window. But no such luck.  
They seemed to be arguing about whether to sell or use the codex. Danny seemed to be arguing for making a profit. No surprise there. Some things never change, do they?  
"Whaddaya think? They gonna sell or use?" whispered Dean next to her. Okay, so he lip read too.  
"Whatever they want, we need to get to the codex before they start doing what they want to do!" She urgently whispered back.  
"Come on." Dean vanished in the dark once more and Cat had no choice but to run after him.

They found an old storm shelter entrance in the garden.  
Locked, of course.  
Dean was pissed off.  
Couldn't anything ever be easy?  
Dean swore and pushed a small package into Cat's hand.  
"Ever used these before?"  
Oh great. Picklocks.  
"Nope."  
"Perfect. Juuuust perfect."  
Dean swore again.  
"Open the bag. Take the wriggly one there. Yeah, that's the one. And the straight one here, take that in your other hand. Now insert that one in the lock here and the other one across from there."  
He put his hands on hers and started guiding her through the motions, listening intently to the sounds the old padlock made.  
"More to the left there, Cat."  
His hands were warm and felt nice on her skin, she thought.  
"Yes, that's it, Cat. Now turn the one in your right hand carefully clockwise until you feel the resistance give."  
With a determined snap, the lock opened.  
"Good work, kitten. Guess you're now officially a felon, too."  
His hot breath was caressing her ear. He chuckled quietly.  
"Guess I'm a bad influence."  
They carefully crept down the rickety old stairs.  
Dean moved ahead of her with the certainty probably born of years of breaking and entering. Catherine followed quietly, paying close attention to his lead. He seemed to just know which floorboards might be creaking, seemed to guess at where to put his feet. You had to hand it to the man, he could move almost silently, even in the state he was in.  
She felt his hand on her stomach, stopping her.  
He lifted his hand with one raised finger, pointing ahead.  
She listened intently and caught the heated voices in the room they had looked into from the outside.  
Danny was shouting now.  
He seemed to be losing his argument. Bummer for him, good for them.  
Even if one of the ancient floorboards would creak right now, Catherine doubted anyone would hear it over the fight.  
Dean turned to her and whispered in her ear "They don't know I probably can't aim my goddamn gun straight, so unless you give me away or they do something incredibly stupid, we should do okay. Let's just march in there, threaten them a bit and waltz right out again with the codex. 'Kay?"  
His lips brushed her earlobe as he spoke. Cat felt that touch all the way, complete with freaky butterflies in her stomach. No, no, not good. Very distracting, lousy timing, entirely wrong guy.  
"Okay." She whispered.  
He glided onwards and Cat had no choice but to follow.  
They looked into the room now.  
Danny and Sallow Face were still arguing, the bikers were taking turns with the girls at the back of the room.  
Dean sauntered into the room, gun in hand. He took a stand at the door, where he could cover both the two arguing men and the gang in the back easily.  
He cleared his throat and suddenly had the full attention of a room full of people.  
"Good evening, gentlemen. You have something that I want. Hand it over now and nobody needs tp get hurt."  
Where the hell was Bobby? He should have found a way in by now. Bobby and…  
Sammy, too.  
Sammy should be there.  
Bull.  
Why should he, after everything that…. ?

Dean determinedly left this train of thought and turned his attention back on the present.  
Things were moving very quickly very suddenly.  
The bikers moved towards Dean and the two arguing men both tried to grab the codex at the same time.  
Dean pulled the trigger and was very surprised when he actually hit the biker to the left. Never mind that he had aimed for the one in the middle, it was results that counted.  
And the shot and subsequent hit stopped the bikers cold.  
He heard Catherine say "Don't move, Dan. No, you neither!" in a very cold voice.  
Dean just knew from the look on the other man's face that Danny Larson was not going to heed that warning. And as expected, the man kept moving towards the codex on the table.  
Catherine said "FREEZE!" and Dean could feel something incredibly cold and powerful rushing past him.  
Danny Larson and Sallow Face were standing there, motionless, small icicles hanging from their noses, arms, and various other body parts.  
Cat moved past Dean and took the parcel from the table.  
She unwrapped it, checked the contents carefully and nodded to Dean that they could go.  
Bobby and Sam chose that precise moment to finally also burst into the room.  
"Oh. Errrm. You got it already, have you?" said Sam. "We couldn't get the front door open, they had a safety lock installed."

Back at the motel, Dean opened another beer. He felt alive, exhilarated, the same way he had always felt after a job well done.  
He looked at Bobby, nodded and saluted him with his beer.

"Ain't found a way to kill me yet. "

Yeah, right. Not even in this job. Not even when he had made it so easy for the baddies to get at him. Not even when he was more dead than alive.  
He was fucked up beyond belief, but he was still standing.  
Yeah, right.  
Whatever.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Episode 2 - Putting Pain in a Stranger**_

*Soundtrack*  
David Bowie – Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing  
B.B. King – Nobody loves me but my mother  
Calexico – Guns of Brixton  
Sniff 'n' The Tears - Driver's Seat  
The Hollies – Soldier's Song  
Babyshambles – Sedative  
Kate Bush – Hounds of Love  
H.I.M. – Wicked Game

Intro

"It's safe in the city, to love in a doorway  
To wrangle some screams from the dawn  
And isn't it me, putting pain in a stranger?  
Like a portrait in flesh, who trails on a leash  
Will you see that I'm scared and I'm lonely?"

Cat stood at the window, listening to her favourite playlist again over her earphones. Sleep just wouldn't come. The day had been filled with too many unpleasant surprises.  
She knew now.  
That moment in the darkness outside the basement window when Dean's lips accidentally brushed her earlobe, it had become crystal clear to her. The voice had whispered to her that he was the one and she had felt the coiled power inside of him.  
She wasn't finished with this "job" yet.  
And it wouldn't end when she gave the codex back to the council, either.

"Boys, boys, it's a sweet thing, sweet thing  
If you want it, boys, get it here, thing  
'Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"

Indeed, hope WAS a cheap thing.

She looked inwards, checking her powers for the umpteenth time.  
What could she rely on, if she couldn't trust her powers anymore?  
When she had said "Freeze" in that basement, the two men were supposed to just have their muscles freeze up on them, not to be deep frosted.  
It was just plain impossible to mess that simple spell up so badly.  
So how could that have happened?  
What had that bastard who called himself her father done to her?  
And why couldn't she find anything?  
Her powers were damaged, sure, she knew that. Big, gaping holes were revealed to her whenever she checked. But what she had left should work, plain and simple. There was no sign of anyone rewiring anything, just destruction.  
Still, the spell had gone bad…..

Catherine shook herself.  
Strange, there was still traffic out there, even at 3 am in the morning. She thought in small towns like Sinai, the nights would be more peaceful.

She held the Scaglia codex in her hand, contemplating what to do next. What she had read made her hesitant to simply hand it over to the Council again and forget about it. Parts of it should definitely be destroyed, but on the other hand, there was just so much useful knowledge in it.

She took a deep breath, turned the iPod off and left her room.

Chapter 1

Dean had crashed on the sofa within seconds of coming back to the motel.  
Catherine walked softly past him, trying not to wake him up.  
His jaw was clenched and he moved restlessly in his sleep.  
Cat leaned down and lay her hand on his forehead. She hesitated briefly, doubtfully, then concentrated again on her powers and whispered "Rest easy, Dean".  
He visibly relaxed.  
Cat walked over to the door leading to the other bedroom and quietly opened it.  
Bobby was snoring in the bed by the door, Sam was tossing and turning in the bed by the window.  
She walked over to Sam and woke him up.  
"Come to my room and bring your computer and the hand scanner." She whispered and left.

Sam rubbed his eyes. He plugged the last cord in, powered up his laptop, then looked at Catherine.  
She handed him an old book.  
"Guess that's the Scaglia codex?"  
"Yes. Scan it."  
"There's something wrong with the book, Catherine. Look, the first part of it is fine, but these pages at the back seem stuck together."  
"No, there's nothing wrong with the book. That section simply will not be scanned." Catherine said with absolute certainty.  
Sam started scanning. Catherine sat on the bed.  
"Can I ask you something?" Sam said without looking up from his work.  
"Sure."  
"Dean. He, erm, he is… I mean, obviously, he's not okay. What is going on?"  
"Sam, if you want advice from me, it would be to go and ask him that directly. Seriously, it doesn't ever help when total strangers meddle."  
Sam shrugged and continued scanning for a while.  
Then he stopped.  
"You know, it's just that I don't understand why he ignores me like that. I could understand him yelling at me, it would be okay if he beat me to a bloody pulp, but this? I don't get it and I can't take it!"  
"He needs time, Sam."  
"Time for what? For deciding how to punish me for what I put him through? For what I did?"  
Time to heal, Catherine thought, but she didn't say it out loud.  
Sam looked at her with so much pain in his eyes that she wished she could just transport these people back to some point in time where changing one small thing might set their lives on a different course. One without the pain, the violence and the hopelessness.

Dean was swearing a blue streak.  
He was in the shower, trying to achieve a maximum of cleanliness without getting his bandages wet. It was annoying the hell out of him.  
"I mean, how stupid is this? I have to turn the water off to soap up and then I stand here with my arms high over my head rinsing it all off? It makes me look like a total jerk!" he thought, then turned the water off and reached for a towel.  
"Jesus Christ!" he yelled, as he came face to face with Catherine.  
She coolly gave him a once-over, then said "Your bandages need to be changed."  
"You could have knocked. In case you didn't notice, I was in the freakin' shower!"  
"Best sit on the toilet." Catherine stacked bandages on a small shelf, then turned to Dean with scissors in her hand.  
"Well?" she said impatiently and gesture towards the toilet.  
Dean sat down and held out his hands.  
Cat cut carefully through the bandages. He had cut with a single slice from the crook of his arm down to the wrist on both arms.  
No signs of hesitation.  
Boy, was that man into overkill. Half the length of cuts would've killed him dead just as surely, but no….  
"I think the stitches should be pulled."  
Dean looked at the damage and just nodded.  
Cat rummaged through her bag until she found her nail scissors.  
When she was finished pulling the stitches, she put some antiseptic powder on and started bandaging Dean's arms again.

Her hands were very gentle on his skin.  
Dean swallowed, then said softly to her "I don't get it. You cuss at me and treat me like a jerk, then suddenly, you're … ah… you seem to be concerned. What's with that?"  
Catherine was silent for a few seconds, then she look up at him.  
"You're a good man, Dean Winchester. Then life started to mess you up. Badly. This here does not change the fact that you're a good man. All it does is say that you've been pushed beyond your limit. Nothing more, nothing less. Now you have to crawl away from the wreckage and start over. I can relate."  
Dean remembered her scars, how awfully deliberate they had look, how he could almost see how the knife had sliced into her to create the pattern.  
Had she been in hell with him, he'd have done something similar to her. That thought sliced through him, leaving a trail of searing, hard, metal pain behind, almost like a real knife would.  
He was no good man, not anymore.  
Dean swallowed again.  
"Yes, I know you can. But you at least didn't try to take the coward's way out, did you?" He said harshly.  
Cat laughed and it sounded brittle.  
"No, but that was not thanks to me being a better or stronger person than you, Dean, that was courtesy of the Council. They kept me locked up in a padded room for WEEKS."  
With that, Catherine rose, grabbed her supplies and left the bathroom.  
Dean stared after her.  
He could see her clearly, pacing in a padded cell like a caged tigress.  
How she must have hated that.

Chapter 2

"_If you walk out that door Sammy, don't you ever come back."  
He should have stopped Sammy. He should've known what was wrong right from the start. If only he had done something. Anything. What kind of a brother was he, if he didn't even notice… THAT! Why hadn't he just talked to Sam, talked until the kid got talking? Why did he have to be so damned judgmental that Sam must've felt he couldn't come to him with that shit?_

_The black, viscous flux inside his head sucked him further down…._

_The screams went on and on.  
They would never stop.  
They thought they had dragged him to hell back then? Bull. This was hell. THIS. Listening to his brother's screams over and over again.  
Feeling helpless.  
Feeling inadequate._

Cat hit the brake hard and cursed. Dean's eyes snapped open.  
"Did you win your license in the goddamned lottery, dickhead?" Cat screamed.  
She swung sharply to the left to drive around the guy in the battered old pickup who had just pulled out of the parking lot without looking.  
"You know, Sam, I still can't believe you practically live in a car for years, but didn't own a jack to power your laptop from the cigarette lighter until two minutes ago!"  
"Yeah, well, Dean doesn't like it when someone tries to douche up the car, so after the big iPod jack disaster, I just never worked up enough nerve to bring up the subject" Sam said, grinning.  
The grin faded, as he looked at his brother, who was staring stolidly up ahead.  
He went back to scanning the rest of the codex.

Dean looked at his fists. They were clenched so hard the knuckles were stark white. Hurt like blazes, too.  
He could have screamed in frustration.  
He had wanted to reply to that crack, but the words just wouldn't come out. They were stuck in his throat, threatening to choke him.  
He slowly unclenched his hands.

Catherine shot Dean a worried glance.  
Okay, at least he had reacted to his brother this time. Not well, mind you, but every little bit helped. Maybe things were moving forward.  
She had promised Bobby that she would bring the brothers to him after they gave the codex to the Council. He still had not looked even remotely happy as he drove off.  
They drove on. The only thing that broke the decidedly uncomfortable silence was the radio.

And in that day I aged 10 years and died a thousand deaths,  
I learned the feel of frozen steel and fear within my breast,  
But the lesson I remember 'til they lay me to my rest,  
Keeps returning.

"Say, Catherine, why are you letting me scan the codex? Isn't it supposed to be a secret to which only your Council is privy?"  
Sam was hunched over in the backseat, still scanning the codex with his hand scanner.  
"Yes. So?"  
"Well, I was just thinking what are they going to do to you for letting us have it?"  
"Well, who's going to tell them Sam? You?"  
"No, certainly not, but…"  
Catherine sighed.  
"They are not omniscient. They just like to appear that way. Unless one of the people in this car spills his guts to them, they will be none the wiser."  
Dean shifted in his seat to look at her.  
"You still haven't told us, Cat, why you're letting us have it."  
She shot him a glance. His eyes were very alert. Definitely time for a no-bull answer.  
"I'm looking for a way to take my father down. There might be something in there to help me stop him, defeat him. I will never be safe while he's around consorting with demons and such. And I was thinking you might be able to help me with that."  
Dean snorted.  
He was about to tell her "no way Jose", but somehow, he couldn't.  
He still didn't know what it was about her, but in a world that to him seemed somehow washed out and faded, dull, dire, she was a vibrant spot of colour and he just knew he could not let her walk away from him.

Around noon, they stopped at a diner.  
Since they were in a hurry, Sam got out of the car to get takeaway food for them.  
Dean was leaning against the Impala. The sun felt good on his back. As did Cat's hand, incidentally, which she had just put there. He almost smiled at her, but then he saw her serious face. Oh, time for another round, was it?  
"You know, Sam could do with some talking, Dean."  
"I know. I.. I just can't." Dean turned to look at her.  
"What if I can't stop talking to him, once I start? What if I spill it all, if I then tell him all the things .. everything… the bad stuff.. it's just… What was said can never be unsaid."  
"No, but it can be forgiven. Works both ways, you know. You need to forgive Sam as well. And most of all, you need to forgive yourself, Dean."  
He was biting his lip.  
"Not gonna happen." he thought, as the darkness swallowed him whole again.

"_No Alastair, please, stop it, I can't take this anymore."  
His voice sounded raw and he was sobbing.  
His breath made gurgling noises, there was just so much blood in his windpipe and lung.  
Still the serrated edge of the knife kept sawing and hacking and Dean knew full well it would go on forever.  
No, not forever.  
When there was no meat left to cut, Alastair would stop and they would put him back together again, so the bastard had something to slice again the next day.  
And the next one after.  
And the next…_

Catherine was still talking, trying to get her point across, when she suddenly noticed that he was gone again.  
"Shit! Dean. Dean! DEAN?"  
She rubbed his back, no reaction. She shook him lightly, no reaction. She shook him harder, still nothing. Shitshitshitshit….  
"Catherine? What's going on?"  
Sam was standing there, arms full of paper bags, face white, as he looked at his brother.  
"Sam… uh.. Dean…. He drifts. He, uh, gets lost sometimes. Like this. He's just… somewhere inside his mind and it ain't a happy place."  
"What? How long has this been going on? What are we going to do?"  
"I don't know, Sam. The last couple of days, I used to be able to kind of shake him out of it, but he… he just isn't reacting at all this time. DEAN!"  
As if shouting would work, when nothing else did.  
Only one thing left to do. God, no.  
Catherine just didn't want to do that again, but looking at Sam's pale, worried face, there just seemed to be no alternative.  
"Sorry, Dean," she whispered, then put her hands on both his arms, right where he had cut the deepest, dug her nails in and squeezed.  
Dean gasped and blinked.  
He had that startled, naked look people have when they come out of a deep faint, or after CPR.  
She looked hard into his eyes. Yes, he was back.  
"Okay, Dean, we got to drive on. Get in the car, everybody."  
With that, she pushed Dean into the car, nodded at Sam to get in and they were off again.  
They swung unto the Interstate.  
Catherine was scared. What if Dean would just stay gone the next time? She caught sight of Sam's strained face in the rearview mirror and knew she had to at least pretend there was nothing wrong, that this episode was nothing she hadn't seen before.  
"So, Sam, what did you buy for us?" Cat asked, with a cheer in her voice she didn't feel at all.  
"I, err.., I got a bacon cheeseburger for Dean and a tuna sandwich for you, is that okay?"  
"Yeah, that's fine, Sam, thanks!"  
"Sounds good to me, Sammy" came a hoarse whisper from Dean.  
"Is there any pie?"

Chapter 3

They drove up to the mansion in Savannah at 8 pm.  
Dean had said very little during rest of the drive, but at least he had not had another episode. He seemed more alert, more aware of his surroundings.  
Cat could've just cried when he had finally talked to Sam.  
It was still a far cry from perfect, but at least it showed that he was indeed healing. He had a long way to go, still, but if she compared the here and now to the status that morning, the progress was tremendous.  
The unspoken agreement between the two seemed to be to keep it light, though. But still, it was so much better than before.  
Sam had finished scanning around 50 miles before they reached Savannah, so that was also taken care of.

Catherine braced herself, then got out of the car.  
Dean was following her to the house, this time a solid, reassuring presence at her back.  
Again, the silent butler took their jackets, again they were taken to the room where Dominic waited for them.  
Catherine wordlessly handed him the codex.  
Dominic smiled.  
It was a genuine smile that reached his eyes, crinkling the lines around them, making him look like the benign patriarch he so would like to be and yet he so could never be. Not while he was head of the Council, anyway.  
He was obviously relieved to have the codex back and Cat new very well why.  
The last 100 or so pages of this journal should be destroyed. No place on this earth was safe enough for this kind of information. But if she said something, she would give away that she read it and all the care Sam had taken to rewrap it in its original waxed paper and string would be in vain.  
And then he said them, the words she had waited for.  
"You are now free of all obligations to the Council."

Dominic turned to Dean. "We also thank you for your help, of course."  
"Yeah, about that. You know, I really didn't do a goddamn thing here, so would you mind explaining to me why you sent Catherine to break me out of hospital for this gig? Don't make a lick of sense to me, if you ask me."  
Dominic frowned. He looked puzzled and said: "Our clairvoyant insisted. She was very adamant about that, said you were vital to this mission… But then, scrying the future is not really an exact science, Mr. Winchester."  
Catherine was startled.  
She hadn't even stopped to consider if Dean actually contributed anything of importance to the task, she had been far too busy just trying to keep him rooted in the here and now. But he was right. He hadn't done anything she couldn't have done by herself.  
Of course, there was that other thing that made Dean important...  
Maybe the seer had seen in her favour, not in the interest of the Council. Martha had always had a soft spot for her.  
She kept her features carefully neutral, said something non-committal about how hard it was to interpret visions right, said her goodbyes very quickly and almost bodily dragged Dean out of the house.

He didn't say a word until they had pulled away from the curb.  
"Cat." There was that husky little growl in his voice again, the one that said "don't mess with me".  
"Now is not a good time, Dean."  
"Why the hell not? Now seems to me as good a time as any."  
"Dean, I will not lie to you. Ever. But I must ask you to accept when I tell you that I can't talk about something. And I can't talk about this now."  
Dean looked ahead intently, chewing on his lip again.  
"Deal."  
Cat was surprised. She hadn't expected him to acquiesce right away.  
Sam asked "Guys, you know I'm still here, right? I mean, don't put yourselves out on my accord, but I AM still here on the backseat and I don't like being in the dark."  
"You heard her, Sammy. Now is not a good time. Hey, Cat, can we crash at your friend's place again?"  
"Yes. And it's about time I got some rest, too. I'm beat."

They sat around the table and grumpily looked at the very small pile of money in front of them. The incredible sum of their combined wealth tallied up to 27 dollars and exactly 49 cents.  
Sam looked at Dean and said: "Pool or poker?"  
Dean just sat there. Cat could see it in his face that he was trying to find something offhand to say to explain why neither was probably a good bet now.  
"Singing."  
Both men looked at her.  
"I've seen a sign for a talent show. Prize money was 500 bucks. If we hurry, I can still enter."  
"You think that you can win that?" Sam asked.  
"Well, I think I have a sporting chance."  
"Okay then. Let's do this!" said Dean, arms outstretched expansively, clearly thinking he was in for a treat.  
"You really think this is going to work out, Dean?" Sam whispered to his brother as they all went outside to the car.  
"I heard her sing, Sammy, I heard her." said Dean quietly.  
They barely made it to the club in time.  
Catherine drew the very last performance slot. That was a good thing. The later in the game, the more memorable to the jury.

What felt like a gadzillion hours later, Dean looked like a man for whom the sudden development of a severe toothache would be the highlight of the day and said: "There just is not enough alcohol in the entire UNIVERSE for this, man."  
Sam nodded in agreement. He had never heard so many untalented girls butcher the same songs over and over again before. There must be some special level in hell reserved for this kind of torture. If Dean were back to form, he'd actually ask him about it.  
Catherine got up and said: "Well, it's nearly over. Keep your fingers crossed."  
Dean looked after her as she walked across the room. He couldn't help himself, he just couldn't take his eyes off her. He wondered what kind of a song she would be singing. Please, God, let it not be Celine Dion or Mariah Carey. He gulped. Or that Whitney Houston song…. Oh please! They had heard enough of that crap those last few hours to last him a lifetime.

Cat calmly took a stand at the mike.  
The music started and then she was off.

"Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train  
And I's feelin' nearly as faded as my jeans.  
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,  
It rode us all the way in to New Orleans."

Dean got goose bumps.  
Real honest to God goose bumps.  
She was awesome.  
Totally different kind of voice than Janis, but the same raw emotion.  
It did things to his insides. Good things. Sane, healthy things…  
Sam was grinning like mad.  
"Dean, she's awesome! Man, isn't she just awesome?"  
"Yeah, Sammy, that she is. Now shut the fuck up and let me listen."

"Hell, I'm calling my lover, calling my man,  
I said I'm calling my lover, I do the best I can,  
I said now c'mon, Bobby now, come on Bobby McGee, yeah.  
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy Lord  
Hey, hey, hey, Bobby McGee, yeah!"

The room just exploded with applause.  
Dean was grinning, clapping and whistling. She really was something!  
Of course she won hands down. She was just in a totally different league than the other contestants; it would have been preposterous had anybody else won.  
Catherine ran towards them, grinning, the prize money clasped tightly in her hands.  
Sam pulled her into a bear hug.  
"You were so AWESOME!"  
Dean smiled, the expression of his eyes veiled as he also pulled her close.  
The noise of the room just stopped. Went away completely. In the silence, all Cat could hear was the sound of her own heart - and Dean's, beating the exact same tattoo.  
He let go of her abruptly.  
"Hey, this calls for a ce-le-bray-shun! Beer!"

They got home almost at sunrise.  
The guys were sharing the bedroom this time, while Catherine took the sofa.  
She couldn't sleep. She was still pondering the moment when Dean had held her. What the hell had happened there?  
She sat up, went to the kitchen and poured herself some juice.  
As she turned around, she almost ran into Dean.  
Too close, way too close.  
His eyes were unreadable.  
"Cat." His voice was almost a caress.  
He leaned forward, almost in slow motion.  
His lips were almost touching hers.  
Almost.  
Still he hesitated.  
Then, suddenly, he closed the gap and their lips touched lightly.  
Dean stilled completely.  
They just stood there, lips touching, for what felt like eternity. Then he moved ever so slightly, lightly brushing his lips over hers tenderly.  
Cat's eyes closed as she was savouring the feeling.  
And then he was gone.  
Gone, as suddenly as he had appeared.  
She saw his dark form walk into the bedroom.  
She felt strangely bereft.  
Alone.

Chapter 4

_Stupid.  
God, Dean, you're one giant, humungous, stupid fuck. What did you have to go and do that for?  
Cat feels nothing but some concern for you. Were you angling for a pity fuck? Have you sunk so low? I don't think so. So, why the hell then did you kiss her?  
"Because you had to," the soft voice whispered.  
"Because it's right."_

"_Because she is the one."_

Dean blinked.  
While not seeing or hearing terrible things definitely seemed like progress to him, having discussions with strange, whispery voices inside one's mind was still SO far removed from normal…  
Dean stared at the breakfast in front of him.  
Catherine wasn't even looking at him.  
Damn.  
Yes, he definitely was the King of Screwup.  
He pushed the eggs around the plate distractedly.  
They would leave for Bobby's as soon as they finished breakfast.  
Bobby would notice the problems Dean still had with his hands. And he wouldn't leave well enough alone this time.  
Dean was surprised, actually, that Bobby had cut him some slack in Sinai in the first place.  
Yes, Bobby would notice everything. It was kind of his job to, wasn't it?

Sam didn't like the look on Dean's face much. Was he going to have another one of those scary episodes? He was so withdrawn this morning…  
Well, maybe he'd get a good laugh out of this strange dream he'd had that night. The goatee alone would crack him up. Well, would've, before the whole…  
Sam swallowed hard.  
Best not go there now.  
Too much.  
Best stick to nice, safe stuff. Like weird dreams.  
"Hey, Dean, I had this really weird dream last night."  
"Oh yeah? What was it about?" Dean didn't sound particularly interested, but Sam went on, anyway. At least Dean was listening.  
"You and Catherine were in Italy and wore those weird costumes. You know, 'Shakespeare in Love' kind of stuff. It was really funny. You had a duel with a sword, man. And you rocked! But you wore this totally lame goatee. Man, that made your face look funny…"  
"Yeah. Great. Thanks, Sammy, for sharing this story of universal importance with us before I even finished my coffee."  
Wow, but Dean was in one helluva foul mood.  
Sam couldn't believe that that actually felt reassuring to him, since "pissed off" was thankfully a long stretch from "gone".  
Catherine suddenly asked in a strange voice: "What colour was my hair?"  
"That's actually weird, because it was black, not mahogany. Strange, isn't it?"  
Cat got up abruptly and walked to the coffeemaker.  
She turned her back to the men to hide how much her hands were shaking.  
How could Sam dream about that? He couldn't know. It was impossible.  
"How did the dream end?" Cat asked, carefully keeping her voice neutral.  
"A guy in a green cape came from behind and stabbed Dean."  
"Ah, man, Sammy, really. Now you're killing me off in your sleep? C'mon!" Dean growled.  
The man in the green cape. Cat felt cold. She was shaking.  
"We leave. Now."

"This just isn't my day," Sam thought. "I was just trying to keep Dean from slipping away. I thought he'd find that weird dream funny… But not only didn't he, I also managed to make Catherine really angry. What was that all about? She doesn't want to have black hair? Why didn't I just keep my mouth shut?"  
At least Catherine had tossed him the car keys, so he didn't have to sit on the backseat again.  
He looked in the rearview mirror.  
Catherine was staring out of the window, earphones firmly in place, face grim.

"Sedative,  
it's a sedative  
it was my hero  
oh it was..

What's it really like now  
it's been a long long time since I've stepped outside  
to the morning sun now  
would you take me out  
take me by the hand now  
it's been a long, long time since I've stepped outside  
to the morning sun."

She had that song on loop, trying to calm down, trying to stop the pain the mere mentioning of the dream had caused her.  
She had heard that Sam used to have visions of the future, but not in a long time. How could he have a vision of the past now?

_The dreams had started when she was fifteen. They had been different from any other dreams right from the start. They had felt real.  
Catherine had kept them to herself for years.  
One day, though, her grandmother had found her crying in her bed in the morning and had asked why.  
Cat had told her gran everything. _

_It was always the same dream.  
She was in Florence. How she knew that, she had no idea, but she was certain it was Florence, just like she was certain it was the 12__th__ of June in the year of our Lord 1582. Her name was Maria di Cesare, her father was a wealthy merchant.  
She was deeply in love with a man named Davide Fortezza, but her father had promised her hand in marriage to the son of an influential friend of his.  
She met Davide in the garden of her father's house. It was a beautiful summer morning.  
He kissed her softly for the first time among the blooming roses and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.  
She felt the powers she had inherited from her late mother unfurl and join with the very different powers he had inherited from his father.  
She knew he was meant to be her mate.  
She knew that one rarely met the one person so perfectly attuned to oneself that entering the witches' lifebond would be possible. She could feel that he knew it, too - and welcomed it.  
Then suddenly he was torn from her arms. Her father's servants had attacked Davide.  
Davide was an excellent swordsman and for a moment it looked like he could win.  
But then, from behind, he was stabbed by a man in a green cape.  
She felt the blade slide into him as if it had stabbed her, too.  
She screamed and rushed to his side. She held him until his body went limp in her arms. She felt like she had died there with him and she knew he was gone.  
With one determined motion, she pulled the dagger from Davide's back and pushed it deep into her chest.  
It didn't hurt at all as the world went dark.  
Then Catherine would wake up, sobbing for Davide._

_Her grandmother had looked at her gravely.  
"Sometimes, we may have lived another life, in another time, in another place. And most of the time, we won't remember anything besides some vague sense of déjà vu. But this, this is important, Catherine. You found your bond mate and lost him again. Maybe you will meet him again one day – and if you do, you must do everything in your power not to repeat the outcome."  
"But granny… "  
"No but, Cat. You will know it, if you find him. Maybe not with the first handshake, but at one point, you will touch him and you will know deep down inside of you. And so will he. I fervently hope you will find him, hunny. If you do and if you enter the lifebond with him, your f… uh, nobody will be able to hurt you anymore."  
Her grandma had hugged her tightly.  
Catherine could see her face in the bedroom mirror. Granny was white and her lips were pressed firmly together.  
Catherine had noticed her gran wore that particular expression often lately._

He had kissed her exactly the same way as in her dream last night.  
Exactly the same way.

Chapter 5

"You can crush us  
You can bruise us  
But you'll have to answer to  
Oh, Guns of Brixton"

Sam slammed on the brake.  
"What is it?" asked Catherine, pulling the earphones out of her ears.  
"Tree blocking the road. C'mon, Dean, let's see if we can move it."  
The tree was blocking the narrow back road good and proper. They walked towards the roots, then stopped short as they came face to face with Sallow Face and the biker guys and a nice array of assorted firearms.  
Dean yelled "Catherine, RUN!"  
Cat got out of the car.  
Something cold and hard suddenly pressed against her back.  
"Oh, she's not going to run anywhere. Are you now, Catherine?"  
Danny. Crap. Locator spells were one of his specialties. She should've counted on something like this, be prepared.  
"Now, Catherine. You know what I want."  
"I don't have it anymore. I gave it back to the Council last night. Ever so sorry, Danny, but there's nothing I can do about it."  
"Wrong answer, Catherine."  
He hit her hard on the temple with the butt of the gun and she crumpled to the floor.  
Dean started swearing and trying to break the hold of the bikers that held him. Nobody hurt Catherine, nobody.  
Danny Larson turned to him and smiled a nasty smile.  
"Ah, there now. That's interesting. Now tell me, what would you do to make sure I don't kill our lovely Catherine?"  
"You heard her, the codex is back with the Council. I can't get at it."  
Sam cut in: "He by himself can't, but WE together sure can."  
"Sammy!"  
"It's the truth. We can get the codex for you. Nobody has to get killed over it now."  
Sam's mind was racing.  
How stupid could Dean and Catherine be, BOTH telling the bad guys with the GUNS that they didn't have that damned codex anymore???  
Took away their negotiation basis right at the beginning. Man, you NEVER did that!! Dean should know better than that.  
"We, uh, steal the codex from the Council and everybody's happy, right? We're good at that sort of thing. In fact, we do stuff like that all the time."  
"Good. You have 24 hours. Failure to deliver the codex back to me will result in… shall we say… very painful and very final consequences for Catherine. Understood?"  
"You as much as harm a hair on her head and I will kill you dead. And it will take me days to do it," Dean growled, a mad light in his eyes.  
"Ooooh, now I'm scared."  
"You should be. I learned that technique from a demon in hell."  
Danny Larson laughed. "Now that's a good one."  
"I'm not joking. Real demon, real hell. I will slice the meat off your fucking body so slowly you will BEG me to kill you within the first minutes," Dean spat.  
Danny looked at Dean strangely, then turned to Sam.  
"Here. Call me at this number when you have the codex." Danny handed Sam a business card.  
Dean stared at Cat. "We'll get you back safely. Don't you worry about a thing."  
"Dean, I know."  
The brothers got into the car and drove off.

"Stop the fucking car, Sammy."  
Dean's voice sounded terrible, so Sam did so instantly.  
Dean got out.  
Sam went after him and watched with concern, as his brother rubbed his face, paced and swore.  
"Dean…"  
Dean whipped around and yelled: "I'm useless. Useless, Sam. I can't do a fucking thing. My hands won't do what they're supposed to be doing, my head's a mess. So what the fuck are we supposed to do? How do we get Cat back, when I can't even tie my own shoes? How, Sammy? How?"  
Dean's eyes were wild as he ran his hand over his chin. Sam noticed that it was trembling.  
"Dean, what are you saying?"  
"You know where Cat found me? In a mental hospital in South Carolina."  
He pushed up the sleeves of his shirt. The bandages showed very white against his skin.  
"Dean… how… but… DEAN!"  
"Tried to kill myself. Sliced them clean from here to there. Should have died good and proper, but didn't. Got something pithy to say about that? Some snotty, wise ass comment? Thing is, I can't even shoot a fucking gun like this, it just ain't healed properly yet and … and… I can't, I just can't."  
"Dean, why didn't you…"  
"Tell you? Why didn't I tell you? C'mon, Sammy, you know full well why you would be the LAST person I wanted to share this little tidbit with. But now? Now I got no choice. We're up shit creek without a paddle and if we can't work something out, Cat will die and it will KILL me if anything should happen to her. And I don't even know why that is, because I'm such a basket case. Did you know that I hear fucking voices in my head and…"  
Dean stopped, breathing hard.  
"Sammy, what are we to do?"  
Sam didn't know what to say, so he just pulled Dean into a hug. He felt his brother stiffening, but held on regardless, patting Dean's back until Dean slowly relaxed and hugged Sam back. The Dean let go and turned away.  
Sam said: "We'll find a way. We'll get Catherine back safely and you'll see, it's gonna be fine. I promise, Dean."  
"'Kay. How?"  
Sam started pacing now, thinking hard.  
"Dean, I got the scans of the codex. Maybe we can fake a new one from them. All we need is a town with a copy shop and some antique dealers. We find ourselves an old book and… somehow… put printouts from the scans in there. How does that sound?"  
"Like the kind of bullshit that will get us all killed. Besides, we can't risk that asshole actually getting something from the real deal!"  
"Yeah, but Catherine blocked a lot of pages from scanning, so the bad stuff this Council doesn't want to get out won't be in there in the first place, see?"  
"This is so not gonna work, Sam."  
"What choice do we have? I mean, you don't really want to go back to Savannah and steal the real codex from the Witches' Council, do you?"  
"Nope."  
"Then this is our only chance. C'mon, we don't have much time. The longer we argue, the tougher it'll be to get everything ready until tomorrow."  
Dean raised his hands in a gesture that clearly said "whatever" and got back in the car.

"Dude, I found a book that looks similar to the codex!" Sam held the leather-bound tome up with satisfaction.  
"Great. Except that given the fact that the bad guys never unwrapped the damned thing, ANY old book would've done, Sammy."  
"Oh."  
"Well, while you were hitting the antique shops, I printed the pages out on this fake parchment paper shit. What next?"  
"We need to make the paper look older."  
"How?"  
"Well, I found this recipe on the internet. It, errm, involves soaking it in a mixture of coffee and tea, then microwave it for a couple of minutes."  
"Okay, grocery store, then find a motel room with kitchenette. How much time do we have left?"  
"17 hours. We also need a big needle, some thread and glue to put the pages into the book."  
"Right."  
They walked out into the sun.  
"Ah, Sammy, do you know how to sow?"

Chapter 6

Catherine came to in a cold, dark room. From the musty smell, she deducted she was in a basement. Her head hurt and there were phantom images dancing in front of her eyes.  
Might be a mild concussion.  
She was sitting on a chair. They had tied her arms and legs to it.  
Something hard and heavy was scratching her neck.  
Catherine didn't have to see it to know it was a binding collar, blocking her magic.  
Danny would have to be stupid not to put one on her – and if there was one thing he was not, well, it was stupid.  
He had conned her completely, way back when. She swore softly when she thought about how she had fallen for the creep.  
Ah well, water under the bridge.  
Better put her mind to use finding a way out of here.

"Ah, you're awake, my lovely."  
Danny sauntered into the room. She could have puked, she hated him so much.  
"Well, how are you feeling?"  
"Fine. Will be better when you die slowly, bleeding from eyes, ears, nose, mouth and… elsewhere."  
"Catherine, Catherine, so much drama, so much venom. Do you really think you lover boy and his green behind the ears brother can steal the codex?"  
"They'll be back with the damned thing on time alright. Never you fear. They're the best."  
Danny left her, laughing as he locked the door.  
"You hear me Dean? You guys are the best. You can do it." Catherine whispered fervently.  
But she had better try to be prepared so the boys wouldn't have to perform a miracle all by their lonesomes.  
Catherine started rocking the chair, harder and harder until it toppled.  
One of the legs smashed. Okay, one limb free, three to go.  
Then she groaned in frustration.  
Danny had obviously put a guard on the door and they had heard the chair smashing to the ground.  
Beefy hands dragged her from the room, making sure she smashed into the walls and stairs repeatedly as they brought her up to the living room.  
"Tie her up over here," Danny said, sounding bored.

"Dean, this really doesn't look half bad. I think your idea about daubing it all with the wet tea bag really did the trick."  
Sam was enthusiastic. They had never done anything like this before. He had cut the old pages out of the book and now carefully sowed the new pages into it. It looked exactly like what an old, worn codex should look like.  
"Yeah. And you stitched the whole shit up nicely. Neat cross stitch there, Francis." Dean took another sip of whisky.  
Sam looked pleased.  
"Now we wrap it up."  
"That's going to be tough, given that we can't remember what the original wrapping had looked like exactly, Sam. How shall we do it?"  
Perfect. You solved one problem and ended up with a dozen more.  
They just weren't cut out for this kind of work. It was a long way from hustling pool or credit card scams.  
"Well, Dean, we can't really duplicate the original wrapping, so we'll make a new one and put yesterday's date and some initials on it. That way, we can say they checked it after it got back and then rewrapped the whole shebang."  
"Sammy, you know, sometimes you surprise me. Good plan!"  
"Won't take long, either."  
"Okay, then I'll call the bastard now."  
"No. I will call him. You'll just get mad at the dick again and we can't afford that, Dean."  
Sam dialed.  
Dean went out on the balcony.  
He was antsy. He wanted to drive back to wherever they held Cat and put some pain in these fuckers. No, scratch that, not SOME pain. A whole LOT of pain.  
He sipped on his whisky. Didn't help.  
Cat was all he could think about.  
What if that prick Danny hurt her? He couldn't let that happen. Hell, he HAD let that happen, had been unable to stop it.  
He was a failure.  
He felt so helpless right now. He should be there for her.  
She was everything.  
Everything.

"I just can't deal with this,  
But I'm still afraid to be there,  
Among your hounds of love,  
And feel your arms surround me.  
I've always been a coward,  
And never know what's good for me.

Oh, here I go!  
Don't let me go!  
Hold me down!  
It's coming for me through the trees.  
Help me, darling,  
Help me, please!"

They were driving slowly through the night.  
Sam had negotiated the exchange of codex for Catherine to take place at 6 am.  
They would be on the spot at 4 am to scout the lay of the land.  
Dean was playing with an unloaded gun.  
Sliding in the magazine, taking aim, pulling the trigger, twirling it in his hands. Slide, aim, pull, twirl, hour after hour.  
He dropped it every few seconds.  
Sam had expected Dean to get angry, impatient, to eventually give up, but Dean kept repeating the motions with quiet, grim determination, over and over again.  
The gun dropped again.  
As Dean bent down to pick it up for the umpteenth time, Sam noticed that his hands were shaking badly.  
"Dean, stop that now, please."  
"Can't, Sammy."  
"What good will it be if you overtax yourself now? If you can't do anything when it counts because you're practiced so hard that your muscles and tendons will just cramp up? Give yourself a break, Dean, please!"  
Dean slid a full magazine into the gun and then tucked it into his jeans.  
Sam was right, of course.  
He wasn't stupid. He had noticed that he hadn't gotten any better after the first hour anymore, he had gotten worse.  
Didn't mean he had to like it, did it?

They did a thorough sweep of the location.  
The clearing in the wood was not a good spot for such an exchange, not even by a long stretch of the imagination. Trees on all sides, a rickety woodshed to boot, bad guys could come at them from any odd direction.  
Dean stood in the middle of the clearing, frowning.  
"Hey, Sammy, come here, will ya."  
"What is it, Dean?  
"I've been thinking. We're agreeing that they won't just let us walk afterwards, right?"  
Sam nodded.  
"If I were this dickhead Danny, I'd make sure that I had men positioned at our back."  
"Yup."  
"So… Road's that way, so they'll come from there. At least, the official party will. What say we booby trap as many of these little paths back there as we can?"  
"Good idea. I'll fetch some rope from the car."  
They spent the better part of an hour putting up some very simple, but exceedingly nasty traps.

At 6 am precisely, a group of people made their way towards them.  
Two bikers were pushing Catherine up the path. She was gagged and bound and very pale. After them walked Danny Larson.  
Dude, the man was wearing a green suit. Green! What was it with the bad guys these days that they couldn't even put some decent clothes on?  
Sam and Dean walked into the clearing, making sure to keep the booby trapped paths at their back.  
Sam had the book in his left hand and a gun in the right.  
"That's about close enough," Dean hollered, gun at the ready, as the group reached the middle of the clearing.  
There were some screams of pain coming from the woods behind Sam and Dean.  
Dean grinned. Gotcha.  
"You didn't think we would come unprepared, did you?" Sam asked.  
"Hmmmm, actually I did, but I guess that's what I deserve for underestimating you. I can assure you, it will not happen again."  
Danny grabbed Catherine by the hair and put a gun to her temple.  
"The book now, if you please, without further ado. Can you manage that?"  
Sam said: "You and I, we start walking at the same time. I hand you the codex, you hand me Catherine."  
Danny nodded in agreement.  
They walked towards each other.  
When Sam held out the codex, Danny shoved Catherine at him with so much force that Sam stumbled and fell. Catherine fell with him.  
Sam scrambled to his feet again and looked into the barrel of Danny's gun.  
Dean fired.  
Danny's gun flew out of his hand and suddenly all hell broke loose.

Catherine struggled to get her hands free from her bonds, which she had been working on surreptitiously ever since she had been caught in her attempts to free herself in that basement.  
With one final hard wrench, she managed to pull free.  
She got to her feet and surveyed the situation.  
Sam seemed to be doing well, with Sallow Face unconscious on the ground and another biker as good as knocked out.  
She turned around to look for Dean and froze.  
Dean was fighting the two bikers armed with steel rods with a branch. He wielded the large thing like a sword, swung, parried and ducked. He looked magnificent, but he was so intently concentrating on the bikers than he didn't notice that Danny was behind him.  
Danny pulled a knife from the small of his back, his green jacket flapping in the wind. The wickedly curved blade shone in the light of the early morning sun.  
Catherine yelled "Noooooo" and threw herself between the knife and Dean.  
The blade sliced deeply into her.  
The world went black.

"The world was on fire  
No one could save me but you.  
Strange what desire will make foolish people do  
I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you  
And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you

No, I don't want to fall in love  
[This love is only gonna break your heart]  
No, I don't want to fall in love  
[This love is only gonna break your heart]  
With you  
With you

What a wicked game you play  
To make me feel this way  
What a wicked thing to do  
To let me dream of you"


	3. Chapter 3

_**Episode 3 -**_ _**Lord knows, it would be the first time**_

Lord knows, it would be the first time

*Soundtrack*

The Smiths - Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want  
AC/DC - You shook me all night long  
Argent – God gave Rock'n Roll to you  
Leonhard Cohen – Sisters of Mercy  
A-ha – The summers of our youth  
Calexico - Roka (Danza De La Muerte)  
Doors - The Wasp (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)  
Tito & Tarantula – Dark Night  
Sniff'n' the Tears – Diver's Seat  
Mando Diao – Ochrasy  
Dr. John – Iko Iko

Chapter 1

"Can't you drive any faster, Sam? Faster, goddammit!" Dean yelled frantically, as he tried to staunch the blood flowing from Cat's stab wound.  
Dean was praying, cursing, yelling for angelic intervention, making pleas to demons, all at the same time, all in his head.  
He had never been so scared in his entire life.  
They pulled up in front of the ER and then they tried to make him let go of her.  
He had to be bodily pulled from her, snarling and kicking. Sam held him in something like a stranglehold, but Dean just couldn't stop it, couldn't help himself.  
So much blood.  
Dean was sobbing. Hoarse, awful, painful sounds came from his chest.  
"Sammy, let go, let go, I need to go with her, Sammy, please, let go…."  
Sam held him and kept talking to him.  
"Dean, you have to calm down. Please. You can't help her like that. Calm down. Do it for Catherine."  
Sam tried to keep the fear out of his voice. He had never seen Dean like this, never.  
He just couldn't get through to him, Dean was still struggling like crazy.  
A nurse ran towards them. She injected Dean with something.  
A few seconds later, he stopped fighting Sam's grip  
"What did you give him?"  
"A strong sedative. His woman is already in the operating theatre. It's a very serious wound. Cops are on their way, too. That must've been some attack, she's bruised everywhere."  
The nurse showed them the way to a waiting room.  
Sam put Dean on one of the plastic benches.  
Sam looked into Dean's eyes. They were unfocused, blurred.  
"Dean?" he whispered.  
"Dean, we need to come up with a story. The cops are coming."  
No reaction. Shit.  
Sam scratched his head.  
Oh man…. What was he going to tell them? He wasn't good at this, his had always been the "hey, I'm a good guy so trust me" approach. Dean was the guy for the fabrication of creative truths, not he.  
When the cops arrived, though, Sam dished them the tale of a lifetime.  
They bought it, much to his surprise, fake IDs and all.

_The voices in his head were speaking Italian all of a sudden.  
Someone told him to unhand Maria. Someone said he had brought shame over the honourable family of the de Cesare's.  
Steel clanged against steel. He was fighting. Parry, thrust, faint, thrust….  
And then, suddenly, there was a searing pain in his back and he heard Maria screaming. The last thing he saw was a pair of beautiful grey eyes, brimming with tears._

Sam was pacing.  
They had had Catherine on the table for almost an hour now.  
Dean was completely out of it, which not only sucked, but also multiplied Sam's problems. Still, at the end of the day, sedated Dean was much preferable to locked-up Dean.  
And the police were bound to be back, demanding answers. They HAD to check up on the crap he had told them. Nobody was that lucky.  
The long and short of it was that they would have to leave the hospital this very night.  
If only Sam knew how.  
He stopped to check up on Dean again.  
The much too bright neon lights threw Dean's battered face into sharp relief. Sam went to the water cooler to get a drink for his brother.  
Dean wasn't responding.  
Sam tried coaxing and bullying, he just couldn't get Dean's head to clear up enough so that his brother would drink the damned water.  
He resumed his pacing.

Finally, the doors opened and a doctor strode towards him.  
"You're sister-in-law must have had a whole bunch of guardian angels on her shoulder. The knife missed all major arteries AND the lung. She lost a lot of blood, though. We're keeping her in intensive care through the night. Now, don't be alarmed, that's just a precaution because of the blood loss."  
Sam thanked the doctor.  
Intensive care meant much more attention.  
Sam hunkered down in front of Dean. Damn, still that glazed over look. He tried anyway.  
"Dean? Hey, Catherine's going to be okay, you hear me? It's not that bad, she's just lost a lot of blood. She'll be fine."  
Sam rubbed his eyes.  
"Sammy. You sure?" Dean's speech was slurred and he was blinking frequently.  
"Yeah, I'm sure. I just spoke with the doctor. Listen, Dean, I need to get some stuff organized. Just wait here for me, will ya?"  
"'Kay." Dean closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall.  
He was in a garden, the sun felt good on his back. He was waiting for the woman he loved. He fingered one of the lush, yellow roses that bloomed on the trellis.

"Good times for a change  
See, the luck I've had  
Can make a good man  
Turn bad

So please please please  
Let me, let me, let me  
Let me get what I want  
This time

Haven't had a dream in a long time  
See, the life I've had  
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life  
Let me get what I want  
Lord knows, it would be the first time  
Lord knows, it would be the first time"

Sam went to intensive care. As he entered Catherine's room, he was accosted by a middle-aged African-American nurse.  
"Where do you think you're going, sonny?"  
"Ah… good evening, ma'am, I just wanted to check on my sister-in-law."  
"Go right in. She's asleep and if that changes, there will be hell to pay. Am I making myself understood, young man?"  
Sam checked in on Catherine and wished he knew more about medicine than how to stitch up his or Dean's wounds with cotton thread without any anesthetic and with Jack Daniels for disinfection.  
She was pale, but seemed to be breathing normally. The vital signs on the monitor were… well, vital, dammit, he just didn't know what they meant!  
He went outside and looked for the nurse. She was sitting at her desk, sipping coffee.  
"Ma'am, could I talk to you for a few minutes?"

Sam pushed the wheelchair carefully down the hall.  
His luck was holding, they hadn't met anyone yet.  
The nurse was following, leading Dean. She made clucking noises and talked to Dean the whole time in what Sam had to assume were mothering tones.  
"Now don't you worry about a thing, baby. Your brother's going to take care of everything and your lovely wifey's going to be just fine. Hear me, baby?"  
Well, small wonder after the tale Sam had spun.  
A very tall tale - and for the second time this night, too.  
There must be a special place in hell reserved for people who lied so glibly to good people like this nurse. Sam had woven a tale of Shakespearean proportions, with an evil family and star-crossed lovers, the whole shebang.  
The poor woman had had tears in her eyes at the end.  
One thing that struck Sam as funny, though, was that Dean usually never went down well with these kinds of women. They usually took one look at him and trust and goodwill would go straight out of the window. He wished Dean were only faking being doped out of his mind, so he'd notice. But then again, Dean probably wouldn't find the situation quite as funny as Sam did, not being exactly Mr. Self-reflection.  
"Watch it sweetie, now that's a good boy, just one foot in front of the other."  
Sam had to smile.

They settled Catherine carefully on the backseat.  
"Thanks, ma'am. And God bless you for helping!"  
"You just make sure these two live a long and happy life from here on out, Sam. Promise?"  
"Yes, I promise."

As they reached the freeway, Sam started to breathe easier.  
He put a tape into the radio. Maybe that would help Dean clear his head. Or maybe make it explode. Catherine would sleep thought anything short of the end of the world, anyway, or so the nurse had assured him. So, here goes….  
Sam chuckled as the cranked up the volume.

"'Cause the walls started shaking,  
The earth was quaking,  
My mind was achin',  
And we were makin' it and you...

Shook me all night long,  
Yeah you, shook me all night long."

Chapter 2

_Dean's hunting knife sliced clean through Danny's neck. The man was dead before his body even hit the ground. Too fast for the thundering rage Dean was in.  
That man had hurt Catherine…. He deserved to die slowly, screaming for mercy. Yes, this was much too fast. He had so wanted to put a lot of pain in that guy.  
Dean growled.  
A lot of pain._

_But they had to take care of Cat, that was the first priority, so he had to do it quick.  
He turned, panting, to see Sam was already trying to staunch the blood flowing freely from the hole in Catherine's shoulder.  
So much blood.  
Red, his whole world was filled with a red haze, a drone in his ears that got louder and louder and…_

Dean's eyes snapped open.

The Impala's engine was thrumming and there was Argent hammering from the speakers. His head felt like a watermelon and his tongue seemed twice its usually size.  
He looked across at Sam.  
"Sammy?" he croaked.  
"Dean, you're awake! Finally."  
Dean sat upright, turned to see Catherine asleep on the backseat.  
"She okay?"  
"Yeah, I just checked on her a couple of minutes back. The nurse said she'd probably be sleeping for the better part of the day."  
"Where are we?" Dean yawned and stretched.

"'Bout 10, 15 miles from Bobby's."  
"Did you talk to the doctors? Is it okay to move her?"  
"I talked to the ICU nurse and she said it was okay, as long as we wouldn't bump her around too much. There just was no choice, Dean. I had to improvise quite a bit and I was sure the cops would be back after checking out the story I gave them."  
"Should've thought of a better story, then, Sammy. She should be in hospital, not in our goddamn car!"

"Dean, had you not gone berserk and had gotten yourself sedated quite so thoroughly, then maybe, just MAYBE we could've come up with a yarn that might survive some examination. But you weren't and I was left to my own devices. I did as well as I possibly could under the circumstances, so cut the crap, will ya?"  
Dean ran his hand over his forehead.  
"You did good, Sammy. Sorry. I… I just don't know what happened back there. I totally lost it. Sorry."  
"It's okay, Dean. Let's just get her to Bobby, alright?"  
"Yeah."

Catherine came awake in small installments. She drifted in and out of sleep for a while. She had to be in the Impala… the familiar purring sound was engulfing her.  
Suddenly, the car hit a bump in the road and Catherine screamed.

"Cat? Cat, you okay?" Sam's voice.  
"Jesus Christ on a freakin' bike, Sam, can't you watch where the hell you're going? How many times have we rolled into Bobby's lot and you STILL don't remember that goddamn pothole there?""I'm fine, boys, just… argh…"  
"Lie still, Cat, please."  
Dean was looking down at her over his seat. He looked like hell. Well, actually, he looked like Catherine felt, to be honest: Bruised and battered and definitely the worse for wear.  
"Hey," she said, smiling up at him.  
"Hey." Dean said, face serious. "We're at Bobby's. You'll be in a nice, cozy bed in no time."

Bobby was already walking towards them as they came to a halt.  
"You are late." he barked.  
"You can cuss at us later, Bobby, first help us get Catherine comfortable. Get a bed ready for her, Bobby and I'll carry Cat into the house." Dean said.  
"What the hell happened?"  
"Later, Bobby, okay?"  
Bobby hurried ahead, as Dean carried Catherine inside.

The three men were sitting around the table.  
"I could really do with a drink, Bobby," Dean said wearily.  
"Me too, Bobby."  
Bobby silently handed them a bottle of beer each, then sat down heavily.  
"Come on, Bobby, spit it out." Dean sounded resigned. This would not be pleasant.  
"I want to know what the hell happened. And I don't mean just between the day before yesterday and today. And I don't want no bullshit, either. You hear me, boy?"  
"Where do you want me to start, Bobby?" asked Dean softly, "On the day Cat broke me out of the funny farm, or on the day that got me there in the first place, the day I tried to fucking kill myself?"  
Bobby looked shell-shocked as Dean kept talking in the same much too soft voice.

Close to midnight, Dean sat next to Catherine's bed.  
He had been watching her sleep for a few hours. He was beyond tired and yet he couldn't go to sleep. He needed to see with his own eyes that Cat was alive. She was the only thing that anchored him in the here and now, the only thing that stood between him and the black void that had kept calling him all through the last days.

He quietly edged the chair a little close to the bed, close enough so he could touch her hand with his fingertips.  
She stirred a little, then settled back into deep sleep, smiling.  
Dean let out the breath he hadn't even known he had held.  
Maybe he should go and wake Sammy to get some research done. There must be something about reincarnation on file somewhere. And if there was no such thing, then they should try to find out whatever it was that was screwing with his brain where Cat was concerned.  
Yeah, he should do that. It might… just…. He needed… and explanation. It was all so … confusing.  
Her skin felt soft under his fingers. He stroked the back of her hand ever so gently.  
Her skin. Warm, familiar.  
So soft….  
Dean dozed off.

"Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.  
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.  
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.  
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long."

The sun was streaming through the small window as Dean woke. His whole body was aching and he couldn't even say if it was from the fight or from falling asleep on a straight-backed wooden chair like this. He gingerly stretched and flexed the muscles in his shoulders.  
"Sign of impending old age, you know, when you can't even sleep in a chair anymore without waking up feeling like shit."  
Cat grinned at him. Her voice was a little weak, but she looked much better already.  
"Well, you're the one to talk." Dean replied, arching an eyebrow.  
"Why?"  
"What choice name would you call someone stupid enough to run into a knife aimed at a worthless old fuck like me, eh?"  
Catherine looked like she was going to reply, then thought the better of it. She moved a little, trying to see him better and winced.  
"I'll get you some breakfast, Cat, okay."  
"Thanks, Dean."

Bobby was pottering about in the kitchen. Coffee was brewing and there were eggs frying in a large pan.  
"Mornin', Bobby. Cat's awake, thought I'd bring her some breakfast."  
"Yeah, eggs will be ready in a bit."  
Dean was getting a plate and mug ready.  
Bobby was starting to say something, then didn't.  
"What, Bobby?"  
"Dean, I don't get it. What drove you to it, I mean. I… I've known you from when you were barely tall enough to see over my table and.. I just don't get it!"  
Something snapped inside of Dean.  
"Bobby, what is there to get? My whole purpose in life was one thing that was defined for me by Dad when I was four years old. Bring Sammy out of the house, away from the fire. And I've carried that kid to safety every since. I've been Dad's good little soldier, I've ripped myself several new ones trying to be what he expected me to be, trying to be the man he wanted me to be, trying to live up to his fucked-up standards."  
Dean paused, looking for words. His voice was shaking.  
"And then all that gets shattered. I see suddenly that Dad was not the infallible hero I made him out to be, he was just a man so fanatic about the cause he sacrificed his kids' childhood without even a second thought. I see that I can't carry Sammy away from the fire, because the fire is inside of Sammy. And Sammy… Ah, God, Bobby, Sammy…."  
Dean looked at Bobby, face raw with emotion.

"I couldn't stop Sammy, I wasn't able to keep him safe. And I screwed everything else up. And what I did in hell? How am I supposed to live with that, tell me? And I… what can I be if I can't be Dad's good little soldier, Bobby, what?"  
"Dean, I'm sure your dad never wanted…"  
"Bobby, don't. My life's broken into tiny little pieces… You know, Mom used to read me this story and there was this egg thing that fell and broke and a line that went like how all the king's horses and men couldn't put that thing back together again. Nothing can put my life back together again from that, nothing."

Dean ran outside, into the junkyard.  
He wiped his eyes hard. His gut was in knots.  
What then could he be, if he couldn't be Dad's good little soldier?

Chapter 3

Sam was intently peering at the screen of his laptop.  
He was doing some research of his own, nothing he would want Bobby or Dean to know about, not until he was finished, anyway.  
Big issue, reincarnation.  
Hundreds of thousands of websites, articles, blogs, what have you. Loads of new-agey reports on déjà vu and regressions and such.  
But what did it really mean? How could three people independently of one another be seeing the very same thing – for he just KNEW both Cat and Dean had, even if Dean probably wouldn't admit it if his life depended on it.

He needed a pointer. Something to start with, some real information that would help him get anything besides the usual new age crap.  
He closed the laptop and walked up the stairs to Catherine's room.

"Hi Sam," Catherine said with a smile.  
"Hi Catherine. How are you doing?"  
"Bobby brought me breakfast and gave me some painkillers afterwards, so I'm feeling pretty good, actually. Weak as a kitten and bored stiff, but good."  
Sam drew the chair closer to the bed and sat down.  
"Catherine, can I talk to you about something?"  
"Sure, what is it?"  
"That dream I had. You knew what I had seen. And I think so did Dean."  
Catherine's expression was guarded.  
"I don't know what you are talking about."  
"I'm talking about you asking me what colour your hair was."  
"I was… I was just trying to …"  
"Catherine, please. Talk to me."  
"I… uh, it really happened, Sam. In 1582, in Florence, to be precise. The de Cesares are in my line of ancestors from my grandmother's side. If you're looking for tangible proof, try finding out if you got people named Fortezza among yours."  
"Fortezza?"  
"Yes. Davide Fortezza was his name. That's all I can say now. I have to…. I have to talk some things over with Dean. I can't very well inform you before I've…"  
"Understood. Thanks."  
"Are any other members of your family Hunters, Sam?"  
"Yeah, on our mother's side. My grandmother and grandfather. But I don't know if there were more."

Catherine wished once more that she weren't banned from using the Council resources.  
They had a lot of information on Hunters on file, but the du Lac family was no longer allowed to access that.  
It sucked, though, that the Council would not even consider her request to be exempt from that ruling, even though they knew the full extent of what her father had done to her.

Bobby was cleaning his guns on the kitchen table when Sam came down again.  
"Sam, errm, might be a good idea if you went outside to check on your brother."  
"Why, what's wrong?"  
"I, uh, I tried to talk to him about… what…. happened and he … we… I think I screwed it up and he ran off."  
"Well, let him. You know Dean. He'll smash something out there or start fixing stuff for the Impala and then he'll be good."  
"Sam, I just don't know. What he said… It scares me, the way he is at the moment. Talk to him for me, please."  
Bobby looked so concerned that Sam relented.  
He grabbed two bottles of water and walked out into the hot sun.

Dean was sitting on a rusty old oil drum, a small pile of pebbles next to him. He was aiming at a dented can, pitched and hit it dead center.  
"Hey, Dean, hands getting better there, aren't they?"  
"Bobby sent ya, Sammy?"  
"Yeah."  
"Alive and kickin' here, Sam. Now go back inside and leave me the fuck alone."  
Zzzzzing. SPAT.  
Another rock hit its target.  
Sam walked over, put a bottle of water next to Dean, picked up a handful of pebbles and sat down on the dented hood of an old Ford.  
"Bet you I can hit the mirror of that Oldsmobile from here"  
"No way you can, Sammy, no way."

"Our life's a precious gift  
You've felt it once or twice  
How everything comes once  
But once a million times

But you can find it anywhere  
You know I speak the truth  
I wish there was a way back to  
The summers of our youth"

They burst into the house.  
"I won, ha!"  
"Bull, Dean, I reached the door before you."  
"In your DREAMS, Sammy!"  
Dean opened the fridge.  
"Beer?"  
"Yup"  
Sam sat down and opened his laptop again.  
He hadn't felt this good in a long time. They had horsed around outside, coming up with stupider bets and dares by the minute. It was wonderful.  
He grinned.  
Things might just get good again after all.

"What are you researching?"  
"Ah, some family history"  
"Like what?"  
"I just wanted to see where we come from. You know, if there always have been Hunters in our family and stuff like that. Been wanting to do that ever since Castiel sent you back in time."  
"Hmmm, interesting. Would be kinda cool if we'd been in the family business for a while, eh?"  
"Yes, definitely.""Can I help?"  
"Not right now. I don't even know yet where to look."  
"Well, I'll leave you to it, then. I'll check up on Cat, see if she needs anything."  
"Yeah, you do that," Sam said in a distracted voice as he scanned the genealogy database search results on his screen.

"Hey, sleepyhead."  
Catherine opened her eyes to see Dean leaning in the doorway.  
"Want some company?"  
"Yes, PLEASE. Actually, I want some stupid, mindless daytime tv, but you're the next best thing."  
"Nice."  
He pulled up the chair.  
"How's the shoulder?"  
"Throbbing."  
"Should I get you a painkiller?"  
"Nah, I can bear it."  
Okay, so he should do something to distract her. Man, he sucked as a storyteller, but here goes, anyways.  
"Hey, did you know that Sammy was really scared of water and so didn't learn to swim until he was, like, 14?"  
He told her story after story about their childhood. Cat was listening intently. He was funny, but there was another message coming through as well. How alone they had been, with their father away on hunting trips for days, sometimes weeks at a time.  
And how close they were, he and Sam.  
It was good that he talked about that now.  
It meant that he was indeed healing. It made her glad.

Catherine tried to move her head a bit away from a lump in the pillow and winced. No matter what part of her body she moved or how carefully she did it, her wound would protest with a vengeance.  
Dean stopped talking immediately and looked concerned.  
"Dean, could you… there's a stupid lump in the pillow.."  
Dean leaned forward and lifted her head gently, then adjusted her pillow, fluffing it up a little, too.  
He lowered Cat's head just as gently.  
They were looking at each other, only inches apart.  
Dean swallowed convulsively.  
He desperately wanted to kiss her, but wasn't sure if…  
Suddenly, her hand was on the back of his neck and he felt her pull lightly.  
Dean bent down and their lips touched.  
He ran his tongue gently over Cat's lower lip. Her lips parted. It felt too good to be broke off the kiss with a moan.  
"Not a good idea, Cat. Not good."  
"What?"  
"You're hurt. I shouldn't… What kind of a man kisses a woman when she's got a freakin' hole in her shoulder?"  
Cat's hand was still on the back of his neck. She pulled him close again.  
"The kind of man who gets invited to do so, you dolt."  
"Cat, I…"  
"Oh shut up already, Dean, will you!"

Chapter 3

Sam was annoyed. He had been able to trace his great-grandparents to some small village in Arkansas, but apparently there had been a fire in the parsonage and all other records were lost. What a supreme stroke of bad luck. He had run into a brick wall after just one step.

Bobby's phone rang in the other room.  
Sam heard Bobby talking, growing more animated the longer the talk went on.  
Could be a job… That would be good. It would be putting him and Dean more firmly on the road to normal.  
"That was Pete Striker, friend of mine from Texas. Several people died in freak accidents in a hospital in a town called Eagle Pass. Pete's an electrician and guess what, he knows about the deaths because they called him in to fix the lights. Flickering all over the place…."  
"Sounds like a case. Dean and me, or do you wanna?"  
"You… resolved some stuff today, didn't you?"  
"Yeah, I think we're… good."  
"Then the two of you should go. Will do you worlds of good."  
"Fine, I'll go get Dean. Can you stock us up on water and bullets and stuff in the meantime?"  
"Sure."  
Sam ran up the starts.  
"Dean?"  
He entered Cat's room.

Dean was sitting close to the bed, head down, looking intently at his clasped hands. Looked like they had had some animated conversation going on. At least Cat had some colour back in her cheeks.  
"Dean, we got a job up in Texas."  
Dean looked at Catherine. She smiled.  
"Then you should go. No worries, I won't be going anywhere, Dean."  
"I… I'll be right down, Sammy." Dean said, his voice husky.  
Sam bounded from the room again.  
Dean took Cat's hand in his.  
"I don't want to go right now. Shit, what lousy timing for a job."  
"Dean, like I said, I won't be going anywhere."  
Cat gently caressed the back of Dean's hand with her thumb.  
"And look at it this way, by the time you get back, I'll be much better," she added with a wicked little smile.  
Dean laughed, then grew serious again.  
"We… are we…," he laughed again and looked embarrassed.  
"We are." Cat smiled. He looked so helpless, it was adorable. Big, strong man going all woozy in the face of strong emotions….  
He looked like he needed something tangible to take away with him on the job.  
She put her hand inside the neckline of her tee and pulled out a necklace. She opened the clasp with one hand, then handed the necklace to Dean.  
"Here, put that on. It belonged to my grandmother."  
Dean took it and put it on, then took his own necklace off and handed it to Cat.  
"Exchanging necklaces is a bit high school and all, but… wanna wear that?"  
"Of course I do."  
Dean put the leather thong with the small bronze mask around Cat's neck. Then he placed a kiss at the corner of her left eye.  
"Gotta go. Knowing Sammy, he's already in the car…"  
"Take care of yourself, Dean"  
"Will do. Get better, okay?"  
With that, he strode purposefully out of the room without looking back.

They drove down Highway 90 towards Eagle Pass.  
"So, anything odd about Eagle Pass?"  
"Well, it started out as a Fort in the Mexican War and they did play a role in the Callahan Expedition, then it had a part in the Civil War and they also have a modern day army airfield. Plenty of room for angry spirits, when your town history is based on the military. And I haven't even started on the civilian side of things yet."  
"Fertile hunting grounds."  
"You could say so."

It was already dark when they pulled into the parking lot of yet another shabby hotel. The room was a nightmare.  
"Frontier spirit on acid," Dean called it and hung his leather jacket on the huge longhorns that decorated the foot of the bed.  
"You wanna do some more research, Sammy, or should we go find Pete Striker already tonight?"  
"Let's see what Pete says. Maybe he can give us some more facts face to face that he might not have wanted to divulge over the phone."  
Pete Striker was a tall, gangly man of about 50.  
The bar was packed and noisy and they had to yell into each others' ears to understand what they were saying.  
Pete indeed had one important thing to add. He had seen the ghost of what looked like a frontiersman, maybe a Texas Ranger, briefly out of the corner of his eye when he was working on the lights in the C ward of the hospital.  
It was the oldest wing of the building and it dated back to the 1820ies.  
If what Pete had seen had indeed been a Texas Ranger, the whole phenomenon probably had something to do with the Callahan Expedition of 1855.

They went back to the motel, where Sam dug up more information on the Expedition.  
Sam was chewing on a pencil.  
"It says here that James H. Callahan led an effort to repel attacks of Lipan Apaches and to capture runaway slaves. Callahan seized and burned the Mexican town of Piedras Negras, and the commanders at the fort ultimately refused to help him recross the Rio Grande into the United States."  
"Seized and burned? Well, if he had done that HERE, it would explain some major hauntings, but across the border? I don't see it."  
"Wait, there's more. Captain Callahan was relieved as a Texas Ranger Captain shortly after the ill-fated Expedition. He was never accused of any wrong-doing but many believed that his actions were reckless and brash. Some people even believed that his invasion of Mexico was motivated by pure greed, to plunder and capture escaped slaves, some of them his own property."  
"Nice."  
"I can't find anything about any incidents right here in this town, however."  
"Dig deeper. Maybe it wasn't Callahan, maybe it was something someone else did that only had to DO with the Expedition."  
"The C wing of the hospital used to be the old school, but I can't find anything out of the ordinary."  
Sam sounded frustrated.  
"Let's call it a day, Sammy. We'll go to the hospital tomorrow morning and see if we can find something there."  
"Yeah, I'm pretty much beat. Night Dean."  
"Ah, don't gimme that Waltons crap. Night Jim-Bob. Night, Mary-Ellen."

Dean turned away from Sam to face the wall. He clasped the necklace in his hand and closed his eyes.

"Sleeping in the valley, valley of ill fortune  
Waking cross the river, river of delusion  
Full moon lures the waves, waves of desperation  
Empty hearts and mouths wither away

So close your eyes  
Slow your breath  
Dream of northern lights  
Around this dance of death"

Chapter 4

Dean had bought a cheap bouquet and Sam was glad he had. He had never seen a hospital where the staff was so painfully insistent on being helpful.  
The bouquet at least made them more credible. Dean actually did a good job posing as a young father a little bit the worse for wear after a long night of celebration, who was now looking for his wife and newborn baby.  
Because the staff was so damned helpful, they had to retrace their steps several times, wait behind corners until another helpful nurse left her station and once they even had to explain why they had walked thisaway, when they had been told to walk thataway as another hyper motivated nurse came running after them.  
They were rapidly reaching the end of their tether.

Finally, they made it to the C wing and took the stairs to the basement. The corridor was branching to the left and to the right.  
"This must be the spot Pete talked about," Dean said as he shone his flashlight over the service ducts that ran along the walls.  
"Looks perfectly ordinary to me. EMF doesn't pick anything up, either."  
"But something has got to be here, Sam."  
They started walking down the corridor to the right, when an enthusiastic voice behind them trilled: "Can I help you guys?"  
"Uh. Guess this isn't where you keep the newborn babies? Betty-Lou's gonna kill me if I don't get to the maternity ward soon!" Dean said, doing an intoxicated little about-face and grinning disarmingly at the nurse standing on the stairs, beaming back at them.

They walked out into the parking lot. It was so hot that the tar was melting.  
Dean dumped the lousy bouquet into the next garbage can with just a little more force than was strictly necessary.  
"Can you believe this place, Sam?"  
"They got to be possessed, Dean. Got to be. NOBODY is that helpful."  
"Okay, let's kill 'em, let's kill 'em all." Dean growled, as he got into the Impala.

They went back at night. Thank God the wards weren't as well staffed at night.  
They made it back to the C wing basement a lot faster this time and without being accosted. It was very quiet.  
"The EMF is going haywire, Dean." Sam said as he moved the flashing and beeping device around gingerly.  
"Shit." Dean's breath was fogging.  
A wild looking frontiersman, gaunt and dirty, was standing before him, taking aim with a rifle.  
"Duck" yelled Sam and shot his rock salt gun at the ghost.  
It duly dissipated.  
"Next time, could you wait until I've actually ducked, before firing?"  
"Dean, I didn't even come close to hitting you."  
"Yeah, whatever. Now, was that a Texas Ranger?"  
"How the hell should I know? They didn't wear any uniforms. Might be."  
"These walls are all concrete. This must all have been worked over. We need to find the one spot they didn't give a complete makeover. C'mon, Sammy."

They walked along the corridor, Dean continuing to the left, Sam to the right, tapping the walls to look for walled up doors.  
"Dean, over here."  
"What you got?"  
"Sounds hollow right here." Sam tapped against the wall in several spots. It went from the flat sound of concrete to a hollow boom.  
"Yahtze!" Dean said.  
Dean opened the duffel bag and got a crowbar out. After scratching around with the sharpened edge a bit, he found the borders of what might be a low, narrow door. He worked the crowbar into the edge and after several minutes of jimmying, got the first brick loose.  
The rest followed easily.  
They cleared some of the debris out of the way and shone a flashlight into the opening.  
"Looks like the right spot," Sam said.  
"'Kay, hold this, I go first."

Dean squeezed through the opening, then reached back to take the duffel from Sam.  
He straightened up and looked around. There were old shelves lining the walls, with some assorted bric a brac on them.  
On a cot on the far wall, there was a bundle of rags.  
Dean walked over, then hunkered down for a closer look.  
"Bones, Sammy."  
"Any clue on whose?"  
"There's a little notebook." Dean pocketed the small black book.  
The frontiersman lunged at them, bellowing with rage.  
Dean turned and rolled, shooting his gun at the same time.  
The ghost went poof again.

"Sammy, keep your eyes peeled." Dean turned back to the corpse. If they lit the damned thing up right there, they'd probably set the whole building on fire.  
"Let's put the bones on the floor, away from the rags and paper and mattress and as far away from the shelves as we can." He said to Sam.  
They quickly laid them on the floor in the middle of the room.  
Wild Billy Something was back with more bellowing and the gun. Sam hit him squarely in the chest with another round of rock salt.  
"Nice shot, Sammy."  
Sam wordlessly started to pour salt over the bones. Dean got out the lighter fluid and sprinkled it liberally over the brittle old bones.  
"Done?"  
"Done."  
Dean lit the bones up.  
They watched in silence as they burned.

"Listen to this I'll tell you about the heartaches  
I'll tell you about the heartaches and the loss of God  
I'll tell you about the hopeless night  
The meager food the souls forgot  
Tell you about the maiden with wrought iron soul

I'll tell you this  
No eternal reward can forgive us now for wasting the dawn

I'll tell you 'bout Texas Radio and the Big Beat  
Soft-driven, slow and mad, like some new language"

Dean tossed the slim black notebook on the Formica table in their hotel room disgustedly. He rubbed his eyes.  
"Found anything, Dean?"  
"His name was Buck Walker. He was indeed a member of the Callahan Expedition. He had, however, taken some lucrative little side order from some goddamned slaveholders. His band retrieved some 30-odd escaped slaves and brought them back here, while the rest of the expedition went on with their own dirty work."  
"Son of a bitch."  
"And then some."  
"How did he die, then?"  
"Well, you could call it poetic justice in the end. His men went and got themselves stinking drunk. He and one other man stayed behind to watch their assets. After all, they had been promised a hefty sum for bringing them back to their owners. Well, it then so happened that the slaves broke loose. They killed the other guy right away and then proceeded to brick Walker in. Guess he slowly died of thirst."  
"Serves him right."  
"Sure does, Sammy. Especially if you read this shit cover to cover."  
Sam handed Dean a beer.  
"To a job well done."  
"To a job well done, without getting hurt for once." Dean replied, grinning, mind firmly set on getting back to Catherine as quickly as possible.

Chapter 5

"I thought these things didn't happen anymore,  
I thought all that blood had been shed long ago,  
Dark Night, it's a dark night.

He took a two-piece outfit,  
He pledged his love to her,  
They thought it was their secret,  
But someone knew where they were"

Bobby looked down on the sleeping Catherine. He had grave misgivings about having a witch in the house. He just couldn't shake the feeling she spelled trouble. With a capital T.  
Okay, so she claimed that she was nothing like those bitches he had met in his line of work, but he had only her work for it.  
Didn't do no harm putting holy water in her drink or hex bags warding off evil under her bed.  
Oh, Dean would have something to say to that alright, but Bobby hadn't lived to this age by putting overly much trust in strangers.  
Better safe than sorry wasn't a half bad motto for a Hunter.  
At least for one who wanted to stay alive.  
Bobby didn't understand the influence Catherine had on Dean. And he sure didn't like it one bit, either. Best for all concerned if she just up and left. They had enough on their plate without Dean running after some skirt that in all likelihood was damn bad for the boy.

Catherine awoke to find Bobby watching her intently..  
"Oh hey, mornin' Bobby!"  
"Mornin', Catherine. How are you feeling?"  
"Better, thank you. I'd love to clean myself up a bit, though. Would you mind very much helping me to the bathroom?"  
"Sure thing."  
Bobby put a chair in front of the washbasin, then led Catherine carefully to it.  
"Can you manage the rest on your own?"Bobby asked.  
"I think so, thank you."  
"Okay, I'll be outside then. Gimme a holler when you're done."

Afterwards, he helped her back to bed.  
Catherine closed her eyes. "Ask him." She told herself, "It's not getting any better and who knows when Dean will be back. And he's a big boy, he probably has seen much worse."  
Catherine opened her eyes again. Bobby was still standing there, looking at her with the guarded expression he always wore around her.  
"Bobby, I need to ask another favour."  
"What's that?"  
"I think the bandage needs changing. Would you do that?"  
"Sure. That's not a favour, it's a necessity. And won't be the first bandage I change, either. Nor the last. I'll be fetching some fresh bandages, be right back."  
He left the room.  
"It's a favour because it means you will have to look at my scars." Catherine said softly.

Bobby returned with the bandages just as Catherine carefully slipped her good arm out of her t-shirt, which had consequently slid up, revealing her ribcage with its crisscross of scar tissue.  
Bobby had never seen anything like it.  
The scars were forming a pentacle and the letters JDL, making it crystal clear that someone had cut them into Catherine's skin deliberately.  
She looked at him calmly.  
He looked stunned.  
"The rest looks worse. I'm sorry, Bobby, I don't usually make people look at that."  
"What sick fuck did that to you?" Bobby growled.  
"My father. He signed it, too. JDL. Jerome du Lac."  
Bobby thought he had seen it all. He had thought nothing could still shock him. But apparently, he had been wrong on both counts.  
He blurted out the question, even though he didn't even know if he actually wanted to hear the answer: "Why?"  
"Because I refused to do what he wanted."  
Her expression made it clear that she didn't particularly want to discuss the subject further.  
Bobby silently started to work.  
His face was grim, but his hands were very gentle.

"Pick up your feet  
Got to move to the trick of the beat  
There is no lead  
Just take your place in the driver's seat"

Dean was speeding.  
Okay, that in itself was nothing to write home about, because Dean at the wheel of the Impala was synonymous to speeding, anyway. But today, he was outdoing himself. He drove like a man possessed.  
About an hour after they left Eagle Pass, Dean had been gripped by a sudden fear that they would get back to Bobby's and that Cat would be gone.  
He couldn't shake this fear, even though he didn't have any reason to think Cat would leave.

They pulled into Bobby's lot shortly before midnight.  
Sam was relieved they had made it back here in one piece, given the new speed record Dean had set.  
The house was already dark, but as they entered, Bobby's voice could be heard, saying "Boys, welcome back. There's a couple of cold 'uns in the fridge for ya and some stew on the stove."  
"Thanks, Bobby." they said simultaneously.  
"Listen, Sammy, I'll turn right in, 'kay? I'll just check in on Cat. But you go ahead, have a drink or whatever."  
"Okay, Dean. Night, then."

Dean walked up the stairs. It took all his willpower not to take two steps at a time.  
He paused in the doorway.  
Cat was sleeping. Seeing her made him feel like he had come home. Truly come home.  
He sighed and ran his hand through his hair.  
He'd be stiff as hell in the morning, but whatever. He grabbed a few blankets and a spare cushion from the linen closet and bunked down on the floor next to Cat's bed.

"I was dreaming 'bout times, times that are gone  
Times when I lived alone in my own land called Ochrasy  
That place was everything to me  
The word I made it up you see  
It's all there in my fantasy  
And I believe it"

Catherine awoke slowly.  
Someone was snoring softly nearby. She looked around herself and discovered a fairly uncomfortable-looking Dean on the floor next to her bed.  
She was happy he was back already.  
It didn't look like the brothers had run into too much trouble. The only bruises, at least, that Dean was sporting were the ones he had already had when they left.  
He looked so eminently kissable in the morning light with his stubble and all that Catherine wished she could already move better and could just get out of bed and do the deed.  
Even his snoring was kind of adorable – at least if one assumed it was a one-off due to having half slid off the cushion and sleeping on the hard floor in the first place.

"Mmmh.. hm," Dean woke up.  
"Hi there," Cat said, holding out her hand.  
Dean looked at her sleepily, smiled and took her hand. "Hi there."  
"Good trip?"  
"Very. Ghost gone, no injuries, no arrests. And here?"  
"Quiet. The wound is healing well."  
Dean got up and sat on the edge of the bed. He wanted to hold her so badly it hurt.  
"You know, Dean, I really could do with a hug," Catherine said. "Could we see if we can manage that, please?" She sat up.  
He gingerly wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, taking great care not to hurt her. Her lips found his and he was suddenly fighting very hard not to lose control.  
He was afraid to deepen the kiss, but Cat soon persuaded him to. She made him feel like he had never kissed a woman before. It all felt completely new and more exciting than words could say.  
After a while, they had to come up for air.  
"So that's what you understand by 'hug', is it?" Dean said huskily.  
Catherine laughed and replied: "If it weren't for that damn hole in my shoulder, I would show you EXACTLY what I mean when I say to you 'I want a hug'."  
Dean looked at her with green fire dancing in his eyes. He put his hand on her cheek and slowly ran his thumb over her lower lip. Cat made a purring sound.  
"I guess we understand each other, then," he whispered as he dipped his head to kiss her again.  
"BREAKFAST!" yelled Sam downstairs.

Jesus, his little brother for sure was turning into the king of lousy timing.

Chapter 6

"My spy boy told your spy boy  
Sitting on the Bayou  
My spy boy told your spy boy  
I'm gonna set your tail on fire

Talking bout hey now (hey now)  
Hey now (hey now)  
Iko iko, iko iko unday  
Jockomo feeno ah na nay  
Jockomo feena nay"

Catherine slowly walked down the stairs.  
Her cell phone had rung and she needed to discuss the message with the men – and not laying down, either.  
She felt sick to her stomach, but she had sworn to herself that she would not simply run away.  
Cat guessed she might have felt differently, had the call come in before Dean had returned. But it still wouldn't be easy talking to them. It wouldn't be easy asking for help.  
It wouldn't be easy putting him in harm's way.

She slowly made her way into the kitchen.  
"Cat! What on earth do you think you're doing????" Dean snapped.  
"I need to talk to you."  
"You could've just HOLLERED!"  
Sweat was beading on her upper lip and she was dizzy as hell, but she had made it. She sat down heavily.  
Dean was starting to say something, but she stopped him with a gesture.  
"Please, Dean. It's important."  
Bobby put a glass of water in front of her without a word. She smiled up at him gratefully and took a sip.  
"Guys… I need your help."  
"With what?" Sam asked.  
"It's a long story and it is a hard one for me to tell. I wish I didn't have to tell it and helping me will mean a high risk of getting hurt or even killed. I hate to even ask. I want to make one thing perfectly clear: You have no obligation to me in this. None, understood?" She looked over at Dean.  
"Understood," said Bobby, his voice level, his eyes sharp.

Catherine looked down on her hands. She was gripping the table top so hard that her knuckles were white.  
"My family, well, I always talk about them in two installments. On my mother's side, my family is wonderful. The O'Donnells came here from Ireland in the 1920ies. They can trace their line of witches back to 14th century Tuscany, with not a single black sheep among them. The du Lac family has a rather more shady background and can not be traced back further than the 18th century. We live… They live in New Orleans."  
Catherine paused to take another sip of water.  
"The du Lacs seem to have a tendency to walk the shady grey areas of witchcraft. My father took that to a whole new level. He discovered ways to borrow a demon's power. It's… I can't find words for it. It's beyond sick."  
Catherine took a deep, shuddering breath.  
"He tried to force me to go through the same sick ritual for the first time when I first came into my powers. I was 16 years old and I ran like there were literally the hounds of hell after me."  
Catherine paused.  
Bobby asked: "Where did you go?"  
"I hitchhiked to New York. I just wanted as far away from him as I could. I sang in bars, waited tables, anything to survive. I never stayed long in one place, I was just too scared he'd find me and drag me back."  
"You… were all alone?" Bobby asked.  
"Yes. I didn't dare got to any relatives. What could they have done? My father was just too strong."  
Catherine paused again, staring intently at her hands. It was hard, thinking about the early years. She had been so young… But she had survived, no matter what.

As hard as remembering this part of her life was, it was nothing compared to what was going to come now.  
She shuddered a little.  
"You need to rest. Why don't I take you back upstairs and you take a nap and we'll continue in a little while?" Dean said softly to her. His eyes were dark with emotion.  
"No. I need to do this now."  
"Kitten, please!" He took her hand in his.  
Bobby looked at Dean sharply.  
Catherine took a deep breath and continued. She could do this, as long as Dean wouldn't let go of her hand.  
"Last year, he caught me. I was singing in Atlanta, maybe that was a mistake, maybe I shouldn't have gone South. "  
Dean squeezed her hand lightly.  
"He dragged me back to New Orleans and locked me in the basement of what used to be my home.  
He… tortured me for months, kept me like an animal chained in the dark. He wanted me to give in, to pervert my talent to work for evil. I wouldn't do it.  
Eventually, he gave up and decided to use me as a sacrifice instead."  
She remembered how it had felt when her father had cut the pentacledeep into her skin.  
She had screamed then and her father had said he'd sign his initials to it, to mark the occasion.  
" I…. I was able to break free and somehow made it to Savannah. The Council agreed to take me in and protect me, in return for helping them any which way they saw fit. They… got me whole enough again to serve that purpose."  
Catherine drew a shuddering breath. Just barely whole enough again for that.  
There was one big omission in her story, of course.  
But anything connected to Rafe was not hers to tell. He had gotten into so much trouble for meddling, so much trouble….  
Catherine hoped Bobby would not ask about how she broke free. She knew he had his misgivings about her – and probably rightly so.  
She was both damaged goods and bad news, surely she should keep as far away from Dean as she could.  
Right now, all she could manage was arm's length, provided he kept holding her hand, of course.

"I was called by my friend Remy just now. He found out that someone told my father that I had been seen with two men in a black '67 Impala just a few miles from here. "  
"What are we waiting for?" Sam was half out of his seat already. "C'mon, we need to leave!"  
"Sammy, sit down."  
"It's no use. My father got that information hours ago. He could have done any number of things to find me already. He will find me – and soon."  
"Okay, how do we fight him, then?"  
Oh God, time for more painful truths.  
"We can't. I could have, before he… before he damaged me. Now… there may be one way, but it's a long shot at best and at worst, it could be a catastrophe."  
She should shut up now and just leave so they wouldn't get hurt.  
It was no use.  
Even if Dean would be willing, she doubted that he could pull it through.  
There wasn't a single documented case, where anyone but another witch had been able to do it.  
"Catherine?" Dean was looking at her.  
He was strangely calm. He knew whatever it was that she didn't want to say, it had to do with him. And whatever it was, if she asked it of him, he'd do it.

Cat's voice was shaking.  
"Dean and I have to go to New Orleans. Alone. And if it all goes wrong… I guess we won't be coming back."


	4. Chapter 4

_**Episode 4 -**_ _**Quivers down my backbone**_

*Soundtrack *  
Guess Who – Shakin' all over  
Irma Thomas – Back Water Blues  
Doors – Riders on the storm  
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around  
Beausoleil – Zydeco Gris Gris  
Cajun Playboys – Colinda  
Daigle/Elkins & Cajun Gold – Loup Garou Two Step  
Willy de Ville – My one Desire (Vampire's Lullaby)  
Harry Connick jr. – Take her to the Mardi Gras  
Green Day – Give me Novocaine  
Guns 'n' Roses – Sympathy for the Devil  
Divinyls – I touch myself  
Sam Carr's Delta Jukes - Crawling King Snake

Chapter 1

"When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night  
When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night  
Then trouble's takin' place in the lowlands at night  
I woke up this mornin', can't even get out of my door  
I woke up this mornin', can't even get out of my door  
There's been enough trouble to make a poor girl wonder where she want to go"

The Impala was humming its low, growly song.  
They were speeding through the night, way down South.  
Dean cast a sideways glance at the sleeping Catherine on the seat next to him. She didn't look very relaxed, but it was better that she slept. Dean wasn't sure he wanted to be talking just now. So, yeah, better that she slept.

After her declaration in Bobby's living room, all hell had broken loose. Bobby was yelling, Sam was yelling, Dean was trying to get a word in edgewise - only Cat had been quiet.  
Bobby was livid, saying he would rather knock Dean out and lock him in the basement than let him go off on some stupid-as-fuck suicide mission.  
He also had a few choice words to say about witches and how they were not to be trusted and so on and so forth.  
Sam didn't seem to have a problem with the whole idea of going to New Orleans on some kind of quest, he merely objected verbosely to being left behind.  
Dean found himself in the very unusual role of being the voice of reason.  
Shit, now that was a first.  
He tried to plead with both.  
He was telling Bobby that he was perfectly capable of deciding himself what he did and didn't want to do and that basically, given the situation, he didn't have much of a choice, anyway.  
Then he was telling Sammy that there was absolutely no sense in taking him along, when obviously it was himself, Dean, who had to do something and when the whole gig was potentially dangerous, too.  
It was totally hopeless!  
He guessed one had to gather some experience in that kind of thing before one could be effective. He, having no experience whatsoever, though, failed miserably.  
They just cast him strange glances and ignored him.  
Catherine had said nothing and had just gotten whiter by the minute, until she had slid off the chair in a faint.  
Dean had caught her just before her head could hit the floor.  
He had then simply gathered her in his arms and had left the room.

Instead of turning right to the stairs, though, he had gone left, straight out of the front door and had kept walking until he had reached the Impala.  
He had made Cat as comfortable as he could, then he had gone back inside, grabbed the duffel with his gear and had gone out again.  
Bobby and Sammy had not even heard him, they were still arguing in the living room.  
Catherine was awake when he got into the car. She hadn't said a word, just held out her hand.  
He took it and pressed a kiss in the palm of her hand.  
He had draped his jacket over her and then they were off.

Bobby was raging. What had the boy been thinking, taking off without even a goodbye? That damned witch had done something to him. Some sort of spell.  
Must've.  
Dean wasn't like that. Okay, he had been chasing skirts since he was maybe 12 years old, but none of them had ever made a dent.  
So what the fuck was going on with that soft-spoken Southern bitch?  
Bobby was livid when he considered that she'd almost had him fooled.  
Almost.

Sam had gone quiet.  
He was thinking hard, especially about the past life issue. He hadn't told Bobby about that yet and he had a feeling he shouldn't, either. It was a sketchy thing at best. But Sam felt sure in his gut that whatever Dean was supposed to do was somehow connected to that.  
"Bobby, listen to me, please. I really don't think Catherine has any nefarious plans for Dean. I also don't think she bewitched him. Not literally, I mean. They're into each other, nothing more, nothing less. But I am very sure we should gear up and follow them. They might need backup."  
Bobby looked like he wanted another inning of the shouting game, but then gave in. On the road, hell bent for leather after them was a better place to be than in his home in a rage.  
They were ready to go in under 15 minutes.

"Riders on the storm  
Riders on the storm  
Into this house we're born  
Into this world we're thrown  
Like a dog without a bone  
And actor out on loan  
Riders on the storm"

The road just wouldn't end. It went on and on, just a stretch of indistinct grey in the darker grey of the night.  
Dean was tired.  
The grey shapes started to melt into one another.  
He blinked to clear his vision. Didn't do squat. He needed to catch some sleep, but that was out of the question.  
He couldn't risk closing his eyes, letting his guard down. Who knew what her bastard of a father was capable of?  
"We need to stop somewhere, so you can sleep," said Catherine quietly.  
"I'm good." Dean said tersely.  
"No you're not." Catherine put her hand on his thigh. She could feel how tired he was. She guessed he didn't want to stop because he worried about them getting caught. She would need to find a safe place for them.  
Cat closed her eyes and concentrated until she found the familiar gentle hum of power that spoke of a witches' grove nearby.  
"There's a small road coming up to the right, just after the next bend. Turn into that."  
"I. Said. I. Am. Good." Dean said, sounding furious.  
"It's safe there, I promise. At least for a few hours."  
"Safe? How?"  
" It's an old witches' grove, a place where witches used to gather because of the magic that flows there. I can keep us safe there for a while, I swear."  
No need to tell him that the dancing lights she saw in her mind when she found the grove were the entirely wrong colour and that hiding them there would take a lot out of her because of that.  
The whole history of the different types of magic would have to wait until all this was over.  
Catherine was an elemental witch and her element was fire.  
Green lights meant that the grove was a well of elemental magic, too, but its element was the earth. Catherine wouldn't be able to tap this power in the same way than if it had been her element, but she felt sure that even damaged as her powers were, she would be able to hide them there.  
"It's there, see?"  
Dean made a small noise that managed to convey assent to making the turn as well as objections to the general idea at the same time. Fascinating.  
"How far?" he asked after a while.  
"Just a little bit further. Yes, right there."  
They stopped.  
Catherine asked. "Do you have a blanket?"  
"Yeah. Stay in the car while I grab the stuff."  
Dean opened the trunk. He rummaged through the weapons compartment, grabbed a gun, a knife, some salt and holy water and bundled it all up with two blankets and an old army sleeping bag that had belonged to his dad.  
He walked around the car to Catherine.  
"Can you walk?" he asked.  
"Sure."  
They set off into the woods.  
They walked into the grove. It was small and there was a large stone altar in the middle of it.  
Dean put the sleeping bag on the floor and they settled down on it. He handed Cat a blanket.  
"Try to sleep now, Dean, please." She said to him in a low voice.  
Dean lay down. He looked at her intently. He wasn't so sure she could really do what she had promised in the car. She seemed strained and tired.  
Catherine bent down and kissed Dean lightly. "I CAN keep us safe, Dean." She whispered. "Now sleep, please."  
Dean closed his eyes.

Chapter 2

_He was standing in a garden.  
The air was fragrant with the scent of summer flowers. He could hear birds singing in the bushes.  
A small, red-haired girl in a velvet dress was running around after a blue ball. A tall man with strange lavender eyes was watching her with a smile on his face.  
"Look, Rafe, look how high I can throw the ball!" shouted the little girl gleefully and tossed the ball high in the air.  
"Well done, my sweet, well done!" said the man.  
A hand was tugging on his sleeve. There was somewhere he should rather be. But it was so nice here, so peaceful…_

Dean woke up with a start. Catherine was tugging on his arm.  
"Wake up, sleepyhead."  
The sun was already up and the grove was softly lit.  
"I'm sorry, Dean, but we should be off now."  
Cat looked tired. He didn't like the strained look on her face.  
He put his hand on her cheek and ran his thumb lightly under her eye.  
"You look so tired, kitten." He said softly. Cat leaned her forehead against his and put her good arm around him.  
"Just hold me for a moment and I'll be fine, Dean."  
His lips found hers.  
The grove hummed excitedly at the flare of power this caused.  
Catherine was amazed.  
They hadn't even started the ritual yet and still there it was, raw power flowing between them.  
Cat deepened the kiss.  
It felt wonderful. Dean was holding her tight and it felt as if they really had a chance to win, as if the world was far away and totally insignificant, as if they were home.  
Dean trailed a line of kisses down the side of her neck to her collarbone, untucking her shirt from her pants. He ran his hand up and down her bare back. He felt her scars, but they were just part of who she was, nothing more and nothing less.  
It felt so good to be touched.  
Cat moaned softly.  
Dean stopped abruptly and whispered: "Did I hurt you?"  
"No. Please don't stop, Dean, please."  
She slid her good arm out of her t-shirt and started tugging on Dean's shirt, too.  
He helped her out of the other arm of her tee, then got rid of his own shirt. It was surprisingly hard to concentrate on such a simple task with Cat's hand playing over his chest.  
He gently settled her down on the sleeping bag and looked at her questioningly.  
She smiled up at him and nodded in encouragement.  
Yes. There.

Sam thought that if Bobby would launch into just one more round of ranting and raving, he'd hit him with the map of Louisiana he was holding.  
They were hurtling down Highway 55 just South of Memphis already and still Bobby was at it.  
"Okay, Bobby, stop the car."  
"Why, what's going on?"  
"Just stop the goddamn car, will ya?"  
Bobby drove off the tarmac and stopped.  
"Now what?"  
"Now you will listen to me, just for once. "  
Sam sounded very angry.  
"Catherine is a witch. Accept it. She is not the bad guy in this. Accept it. Dean's crazy about her. Just freakin' accept it. Can you do that?"  
"No." said Bobby forcefully.  
"Okay, then I will get out of this car now and I will not get back inside it. I am not going to listen to your rants any longer. I just can't, because just this once, Bobby, just this once, you are WRONG. "  
"Sam, it's just…"  
"No, Bobby, no. It is not. Please, just try to be objective here. Catherine could've killed us ten times over, if she had wanted that. She could've sold our asses to demons, could've stabbed us in our sleep and hell, maybe she even could've turned us into toads, I got no idea if that's how that magic stuff of hers works. But she didn't."  
Bobby was silent.  
"She broke Dean out of the funny farm and she kept him safe. She didn't object him calling you for help. Had she wanted to harm him, don't you think she'd rather have kept him from his friends?"  
Boy had a point, he grudgingly admitted.  
"Plus, she's actually good for him, Bobby. You never saw that, but Dean had these scary episodes, where he's just…. He'd just be gone completely. He wouldn't react to anything and I could just see he was seeing all the bad stuff again in his mind. Catherine got him out of that, every single time."  
"Can we keep driving now, then?" Bobby asked. "Wouldn't wanna be late when the shit hits the fan. They'll be needing all the help they can get."  
Sam smiled.  
He guessed this was as close as Bobby would get to ever admitting he had been wrong.

Dean was bundling up the gear.  
Catherine was standing at the stone altar.  
When she turned to go, Dean saw she had placed a small blue flower on the slab of stone.  
She smiled at him.  
"We must leave now."  
"I think you said that before." Dean grinned.  
"Yes, I think we must have gotten distracted somehow." Cat took his free hand in hers and tugged. "Come on now."  
As Dean turned the Impala back onto the highway, he asked: "Should I worry about the delay?"  
"No. The grove kept us safe then." was Cat's slightly enigmatic answer.  
"Cat, before we get to New Orleans, I think I should know a little more about your magic. Might help, you know."  
"Takes a while."  
"Not going anywhere."  
Catherine smiled, settled down a little more comfortably and launched into the explanation.  
She told Dean that there were different levels of magic.  
On the more basic level were talents like healing, control over animal or plants, musical magic and so on. These talents were limited to certain uses, but still had a lot of power within their limits.  
The next level were the elementals - Fire, Water, Air and Earth magic. These powers were not tied to a certain purpose or use. Each of them had a distinct quality that made certain uses easier than others. People with Earth magic, for example, would be able to work with everything tied to their element, from growing plants to causing rock slides and creating earthquakes .  
The final and most powerful level were the leyline witches. Leylines are lines of raw, magical power that formed a grid all over the planet. Leyline witches were able to tap into this power and control it, too.  
All of this, as Catherine had explained to Dean before, could be controlled by saying the right words, or rather putting the right command into whatever words seemed useful. But the power behind the word came from a source within the witch, not from the spell word or some residual demon magic, like it did with the spellmongers the Hunters had encountered before.

Dean was trying to take it all in.  
"What kind of a witch is your father?" he asked at last.  
"A Water elemental. Or at least, that's what he was. I don't know if that sick, perverted thing he is now even has a name."  
They passed Jackson. Not far now.  
Dean clutched the wheel, trying to ignore the cold knot in his stomach.

"The hairs on your arm will stand up.  
At the terror in each sip and in each sup.  
For you partake of that last offered cup,  
Or disappear into the potter's ground.  
When the man comes around.

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers.  
One hundred million angels singin'.  
Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum.  
Voices callin', voices cryin'.  
Some are born an' some are dyin'.  
It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come."

Chapter 3

"Beaux et belles fait ses projets,  
Maman fait le grand GRIS GRIS,  
Loin, loin dans le cyprière noir,  
Tout que'q'un crèole crie: ZYDECO!"

Catherine was giving terse commands, left, right, straight ahead from the moment they left the Pontchartrain Expressway and went deeper into New Orleans.  
Dean quickly lost his sense of direction completely.  
She directed them to the Lower Garden District, into a small side street. In front of a bright orange house – next to a small graveyard, no less - she made him stop the car.  
"Who lives here?" Dean asked.  
"My old friend Remy. I'm hoping we can count on his help."  
"Why would he help against someone as powerful as your father?"  
"Because I have known him all my life and because Remy, in his own way, is also a good man, like you."  
Dean snorted, but she had already gotten out of the car and probably hadn't heard.  
Catherine walked up a few steps to the door and knocked.

The man who answered the door gave the words 'old friend' a whole new world of meaning – and one that Dean did not much care for.  
Tall, dark and handsome wore jeans and not much else besides.  
"Catherine! OH MY GOD!"  
The man pulled her into a tight embrace that did funny things to Dean's hands. Suddenly and without him apparently having to do anything, they were balled into tight fists.  
He cleared his throat audibly and Cat promptly broke off the embrace.  
"Remy, this is Dean. Mon amant. L'homme qui j'ai cherchez."  
"Yeah, I'm Dean. I don't speak French and I don't like guys I don't know pawing my woman." Dean smiled a nasty smile at Remy. "Understood?"  
"Understood."  
"Can we come in, Remy?" Cat asked, smiling inwardly about this little testosterone display.  
"Sure thing, chere. Standing out there in plain sight is not a good idea."

They sat down in the tiny living room.  
Remy went to the kitchen and came back with three bottles of beer.  
Dean thought that maybe, just maybe that guy wasn't such a total fuck-up after all.  
"We need to get to the house, Remy." Catherine's voice sounded odd as she said it.  
"Thought you were going to say that. You sure there is no other way, ma petite?"  
"No. You know there isn't. We checked, remember?"  
Remy ran his hand through his hair.  
"Okay, but we better go to Maman Fontaine first."  
"I don't know if we should draw her into this, Remy!"  
"Yes, but I do. Maman will know what to do. She'll have something up her sleeves to help me sneak you into the lion's den."

Remy led them to a battered old truck and then they were off.  
Remy drove down St. Charles Avenue.  
"Hey, where's the streetcars?" asked Dean in obvious disappointment.  
"They're not going down St, Charles anymore since Katrina," Catherine said quietly.  
"Oh."  
They came to the French Quarter. Remy found a parking space on the corner of Ursulines and Rue Royal. They walked from there.  
Maman Fontaine was a big African-American woman in her fifties. She had tears in her eyes when she hugged Catherine.  
Then she turned to Dean, put her hand on his cheek and said: "Well, look who we have here. The long lost lover, the man she should've married several lifetimes ago. You not planning on getting' yourself killed again, are you, honey?"  
Dean swallowed.  
"Not right now, ma'am."  
"Ah, don't you ma'am me, sweetie-pie. Call me Maman, like all my wayward children do." With that, she cast a stern look at Remy and a soft one at Cat.  
"Maman, we need…"  
"I know, I know, chere. You need to get to the mansion without that … monster… noticing anything. Well, let's see what Maman can do for you."

She led them to the basement.  
"Voodoo?" Dean asked incredulously.  
"Well, petit choux, what is wrong with that in your opinion?"  
"Nothing, ma'… Maman." Dean said quickly.  
She went here and there, taking up things, discarding them again, picking something else up, until she had gathered a handful of ingredients.  
Then she lit a few candles and began some sort of ritual.  
After a few minutes, she handed Catherine and Dean a small bag each.  
"Keep them with you at all times. Dean, you come with me now for a minute."  
Dean followed her next door.  
Maman Fontaine handed him an old dagger.  
"This here dagger has a silver blade, with some special markings on it. It's very powerful in its own way. You tuck that away safely and use it only if you are sure you really need it. You hear me, darlin'?"  
Dean nodded.  
"It's going to be a touch and go thing, Dean, I can feel it. The only way for you to get through it unharmed is if you trust Catherine absolutely. Can you do that, boy?"  
She took his chin in her hands so he couldn't look away.  
"Yes."  
"You sure?" Maman Fontaine looked hard into Dean's eyes. "You absolutely sure, baby?"  
"Yes."  
She seemed satisfied with what she saw in his eyes. She leant forward and kissed him on the cheek.  
"Bless you, Dean."  
On the threshold of the house, she said: "I wish you Godspeed, children – and a whole band of angels guarding your steps. When it's all over, you be sure to come back and see me."  
They nodded.

"Allons danser, Colinda,  
pendant qu'ta mere est pas la  
pour faire facher les vielles femmes.  
C'est pas tout l'monde peut danser  
toutes les vieilles valses du vieux temp,  
pendant qu'ta mere est pas la,  
allons danser, Colinda"

Bobby stopped the car in front of a fast food joint. The speakers on the parking lot were blaring some Cajun dance tune.  
"Burger?"  
"Burger."  
"Coke?"  
"Coke."  
Bobby went inside.  
Sam was considering their options.  
How should they find Dean and Catherine? Where could they be? He wracked his brain, trying to remember if Catherine had mentioned any friends or places, but couldn't recall a thing.  
Would Catherine walk straight into the lion's den and go to her father's house? And where could that be?  
He saw a phone booth on the edge of the parking lot. Worth a try.

Sam got back in the car.  
He hadn't really believed they would get an address for the du Lac family from a phonebook, but there it was. Sometimes, things could really be that simple.  
He checked the map.  
Bobby came back with a slightly greasy bag and two soft drinks.  
"I got the address."  
"You're kidding me, right?"  
"Nope, was in the phonebook, bold as brass."  
"Far from here?"  
"'Bout 15 miles."  
"Okay, let's go then."

"Down on the bayous of Louisian'  
you gonna hear the story of the moon dog man  
the Cajuns say he's a loup garou  
but listen good he's gonna say to you  
loup garou, I'm the moon dog man"

Remy's old truck came to a halt in what looked like the middle of nowhere. The air was humid and it was still hot.  
"Take care, Catherine, will you?" said Remy quietly.  
"I don't think taking care is much of an option anymore now," said Catherine and smiled a sad smile.  
"At least try, ma mie." said Remy.  
They got out of the truck and Dean nodded a goodbye.  
"The house is that way, but we want to go to a special place in the grounds. Come along, this way."  
Catherine led him through bushes and undergrowth until they came to a clearing.  
She stopped.  
There was a kind of a gazebo in the middle of the clearing.  
"Zat where we're headed?" asked Dean.  
Catherine nodded and shuddered.  
"J'ai froid." She said.  
"What?"  
"Sorry, Dean. I only said that I'm cold."  
Dean shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her.  
"What is going to happen now?" he asked, scanning their surroundings.  
"Now we finish what we started in 1582."

Chapter 4

"So… you and this Remy… ?"  
"Dean, do you REALLY think that now's the time for that?"  
"Well, I don't like loose ends and given that you keep telling me so cheerfully that we are probably both not going to live through this… you and this Remy?"  
"We grew up together."  
"Uh-huh."  
"He was my first boyfriend. I was fourteen, he was sixteen. Can we go now?"  
"How far did that go, back then? First base, second base? All the way?"  
"All the way, Dean. Are you content now?"  
"As long as we are clear that this particular piece of the past stays past, I'm happy."  
Catherine turned to him and just gave him a hard kiss for an answer.  
"Now I'm happy. See, wasn't so hard, was it?" gasped Dean.  
"Can we go now?"  
"Yeeees."

As they entered the gazebo, Catherine grew more tense.  
Inside the gazebo, there was a small fountain. Cat walked over and touch a knob on its ornamental rim. A trapdoor in the floor swung open.  
"Ah, why can't ANYTHING ever be above ground, in a nice, sunny spot with loads of people around?" groaned Dean.  
They climbed down the steep and narrow stairwell, then walked along a dark and equally narrow passage.  
The passage suddenly widened into a cave in the center of which there was a pond. There were a few torches on the wall. Dean lit a couple of them.  
Catherine knelt next to the pond and motioned Dean to do the same.  
"I need your hand." Catherine whispered.  
He held it out to her. Cat took a knife from her pocket and cut across her own palm first, then his.  
She made a fist and let the blood dribble into the pool. Dean did the same.  
She took his bloody hand in hers and clasped it tightly.  
"Through night and day, through dark and light, we come today to pledge before you. As one body and one soul, one heart and one mind, we come today to pledge before you. ARISE!"  
The pond started to glow and a ghostly white figure appeared.  
"Ah, you two again. I had almost given up on you." said the apparition. "Are you ready?"  
"Yes." said Catherine huskily.  
The apparition looked at Dean.  
"Yes." he said.  
"Good."  
The cave went pitch black suddenly.  
Catherine was gone.  
Dean groped around frantically.  
It was impossible, he had held her hand just a second ago, she couldn't be gone!  
He heard the apparition's voice close to his ear.  
"You will get her back. But only after you have proven your worth, Dean Winchester, son of Mary, grandson of Deanna, great-grandson of Elizabeth. Only after you have proven yourself a true heir to your lineage. Will you do that?"  
"Yes."  
"Certainly?"  
"I will do anything to get Cat back, ANYTHING."  
"Good. You are no stranger to pain, Dean Winchester. But this will be worse than anything you ever experienced. Worse than hell itself. Will you do it regardless?"  
"YES. I already told you, now get on with it!"  
The disembodied voice chuckled.  
"Your verve and enthusiasm are laudable. But this is not a game you run, Dean Winchester. You will be run by it. There will be no controlling it. Will you still do it?"  
"Yes. Please, I need Cat back. Please?"  
"Ah, since you're asking so nicely…."  
Dean screamed.  
It was too much, too much pain.  
He fell, screaming. There was no bottom, he just fell on and on, screaming all the way.

Sam said: "Bobby, stop the car."  
"What is it?"  
"There are tire marks coming to a stop in that stretch of dirt over there and boot prints that look like they could be from Dean's boots."  
"Good eyes, kid."  
Sam wasn't so sure. It had almost looked like a beam of moonlight hit that patch just to show these clues to him.  
They got out of the car and tried to follow the footprints into the undergrowth.

Dean stopped screaming.  
It took all his willpower to stop.  
Oh God, the pain!  
The pain still wouldn't stop, but he just had to get past that somehow.  
He needed to find Cat.  
He crawled through the darkness.  
There was nothing to help him find his way, so how should he find her?  
He grew more and more frantic. Searching, grasping, crawling around in circles, starting over again and again and again.  
The worse it got, the clearer it became to him that he was going insane.  
After a while, he just said there, rocking himself.  
But when he got to the point of no return, he somehow managed to pull back from the beckoning darkness. He didn't know where he found the strength to do it, but he suddenly grew calm.  
He COULD find Cat. Just not with his usual senses.  
He concentrated on Cat. Her voice, her laughter, her smell, the way her skin felt, the way her eyes could suddenly light up and make his world a bright and beautiful place.  
He could feel her.  
All he had to do was reach out his hands and…

Bobby and Sam reached a clearing with a gazebo in the middle.  
The trail led towards it and they followed.  
In the gazebo, a trap door was open.  
Bobby looked at Sam.  
"Down?"  
"Guess so."

Dean held Catherine in his arms. The room was much too bright. Catherine was cold, so cold. It couldn't be.  
Dean was falling apart.  
She couldn't be dead. He had done it, he had found her. How could she be dead now?  
The apparition's familiar voice whispered in his ear: "What would you give to have her live?"  
"Anything. My life, my sanity, anything!"  
"Your brother and your friend Bobby, too?"  
Dean gasped. "No."  
"No? You would walk through the rest of your life without Catherine?"  
"I can't sacrifice people I love for her. She would not want to be with me at that price."  
"You think your life will be very short, anyway, after this, don't you, Dean? As a Hunter, it is easier to die than to stay alive, isn't it?"  
He swallowed, but said nothing.  
"But I can promise you this: You will live a very long life, Dean Winchester. And you will be alone. You will never love again and there won't be another chance to be with her, not even if you wait another 400 years."  
Dean was sobbing soundlessly. Oh God, make this stop.  
"No." he croaked. "She loves me because she thinks I'm a good man. I'm a better man than this, I have to be. I won't kill my brother and I won't kill my one friend in all the world, Bobby. It's my pain, I will have to bear it. And you're wrong, I won't live long, not without her. I'll just die – no monster will have to kill me and I won't have to finish it, either. I'll just die without her."

Catherine suddenly drew a shuddering breath which sounded like a muffled scream.

"Very well now, Dean Winchester, son of Mary, grandson of Deanna, great-grandson of Elizabeth. It seems you have passed. Let the mingling of your blood be the witness of your lifebond. Let the terror in the darkness be the witness of your lifebond. Let the beating of your hearts be the witness of your lifebond."

Dean just kept sitting there, Catherine in his arms.  
She was very pale, he thought.  
Much too pale.  
He cleared his throat, but couldn't speak. He felt as if all his strength had been leeched from him.  
He held her tighter, trying to show her what he couldn't say.  
Make her feel what he felt for her.

"I don't dream of all the pleasures  
Heaven holds for me  
With a hand up above my head  
A sword of fire and soft white wings

I'll tell you what it is I need  
To turn this spark into a fire  
Come close and hold me tighter still  
It's you my one desire"

"DEAN! Dean!" Sam ran towards them.  
Dean sat on the floor, holding Catherine in his arms. They weren't moving.  
He shook his brother. Dean slowly turned his head and looked at Sam. He looked terrible.  
"Are you okay, Dean?" asked Sam, voice shaking.  
Dean nodded and closed his eyes wearily.  
"Catherine?" She didn't even open her eyes. She was very pale and her lips had a bluish cast to them.  
Bobby knelt down next to Sam.  
"There's nobody here. We can get them out one by one. Stairs are gonna be brutal, but we can do it."

It took them forever, but they managed to get Catherine and Dean to the car.  
Bobby looked at Sam as they got in.  
"Where to now?"  
"Got no idea."  
Suddenly, Dean's cell phone rang.  
The sound came from Dean's jacket, which Catherine was wearing. Sam put his hand inside his brother's jacket and answered the phone.  
"Hello?"  
"Who is this?" came a female voice with a strong Southern drawl.  
"Sam."  
"Ah, honey, are your brother and Catherine okay? They been gone a long time now and I was getting worried."  
"They live." Sam said tersely. "Who are you?"  
"Okay. You still close to that there mansion? If you are, get your butt down here to my place. You're not safe there. Just start heading in the general direction of the Quarter and ask Catherine the way to Maman Fontaine's house when she comes to."

Chapter 5

Dean held Catherine on his lap.  
Nothing else mattered, but her warm body against his.  
He could feel her heartbeat. It was steady and strong.  
They were driving through the hot night.  
Streetlights cast moving flickers of light over them.  
Dean rolled the window down.  
The air felt like it had hot hands that caressed his face and it smelled of night-blooming jasmine.  
"Sam, where the hell are we?" growled Bobby suddenly.  
"Hang on… there's a street sign. Thoupa…Toucha… no, wait, Tchoupitoulas St.?"  
"Wrong part of town." said Catherine in a weak voice.  
Dean hugged her tighter.  
"Just try to follow the road. After a long, LONG while, we'll pass under the Pontchartrain Expressway. Then go on for a couple more blocks until you cross Canal St. and I'll give you directions after that. How on earth could you get to Tchoupitoulas from my parents' house?"  
Bobby mumbled something unintelligible which sounded a tad defensive.  
Dean was stroking Cat's back softly.  
She rested her head against his shoulder, enjoying his closeness.  
They were in a quiet world of their own, far removed from the sounds of the street, or the noise of Bobby's old car.

"Give her  
the Mississippi river  
the Mississippi river  
and a Voodoo and the Vieux Carré.  
She'll fret  
walking on the banquette  
walking on the banquette  
is too refined for her  
her feet  
need to meet Canal Street  
and only on Canal Street  
will she want to dance."

The sun was already rising when they pulled up in front of Maman Fontaine's house.  
Remy was leaning against a lamp post in front of the house, scanning the street.  
"Come on in and be quick about it."  
He opened the back door of Bobby's car and helped Dean and Catherine get out.  
"Can you walk?"  
"Yeah, I think so," said Dean, casting a worried glance at Cat.  
"I'll manage." she said.  
Maman Fontaine stood at the door, making clucking noises.  
"Hurry up, Remy Chauvin, get them in here, we haven't got all day."  
"Âllo, Maman." said Cat with a little smile.  
"Sweetie. You look terrible. And poor Dean, look at him. Ah, baby, you have been put through the wringer there, haven't you?"  
Maman embraced them both at the same time.  
"But now you will get some rest. You will go straight up to the bedroom and sleep, you hear me?"  
She shooed them up the stairs.  
Remy led Bobby and Sam into the living room.  
"Coffee?"  
"Would be great, thanks."  
Remy nodded and went to the kitchen.  
Maman Fontaine came down the stairs with a couple of blankets in her arms.  
"Can you two manage sleeping here on the sofa and the recliner?"  
"Ma'am, thanks for the offer, but we're not going to sleep. Far as we know, that bastard is still looking for Catherine. We can sleep some other day." Bobby growled.  
"Well, Mr. Singer, I can assure you that you are very safe in my house. And Catherine's father is fortunately trying to find his daughter near YOUR home right now, not mine. So there. Take a blanket and quit arguing with Maman Fontaine, you will lose anyhow, darling."  
Bobby opened his mouth to say something, but Maman shushed him with a curt wave of her hand.  
Sam chuckled.  
Now that was a sight to see.

"Out of body and out of mind  
Kiss the demons out of my dreams  
I get the funny feeling, that's alright  
Jimmy says it's better than here,  
I'll tell you why"

Catherine sat on the bed, feeling weary to her bones.  
Dean was in the bathroom taking a shower.  
She got up and stood to watch him through the curtain.  
He appeared to be just standing there, head resting against the tiles, letting the hot water run all over him.  
Cat took her clothes off, brushed the curtain aside and told Dean to move over a bit.  
He turned to her and wrapped his arms around her.  
They stood like that for a long time, taking strength and comfort from the feel of each other's bodies.  
Dean felt a tingle running down his arm.  
When he looked, there was a strange tattoo stretching from his right nipple to his right wrist.  
He looked at Cat and discovered the very same tattoo on her right side and arm as well.  
"It's my witch's mark." said Cat quietly. "It only shows when I let it or when I do magic."  
"Okay, but… why do I have one? I'm no witch!"  
"No, but you're a witch's mate. Normally, a witch can only bond with another witch – and then their marks would merge. In our case, you simply got mine and… Oh."  
"What?"  
"You didn't get mine, after all. We got a totally new one."  
"How so?"  
"They tell a story, you see? Up here, this is my lineage, then down here, it tells of my powers - and all of that changed."  
"Is that normal?"  
"Dean, where we are concerned, there is no 'normal', because there never has been a precedent. A Hunter and a witch entering a lifebond, that simply has never happened before!"  
"What does it say now, then?"  
"My father's lineage is gone, only my mother's remains and it forms a bond with yours, here."  
Catherine traced the swirls on his chest and shoulder.  
"See, here's the sign of the Hunter." she pointed to a strangely shaped cross.  
"And the rest?"  
"The rest is different, too. I really need to think about what it all means… But Dean… well, do you mind having this mark very much?"  
"No, it's just… strange. And exciting, I guess." he said pensively.  
Dean nibbled on her collar bone, tracing the swirly pattern of the mark from her shoulder downwards.  
For the first time in his entire life, he felt like he was complete, just the way he was supposed to be, instead of someone less than what people expected him to be.  
He cupped Cat's face in his hands and kissed her.

As their bodies entwined, Dean gave silent thanks to the gods of hot water and to whoever had screwed a handle on the wall in such a strategically important spot.

Chapter 6

"So if you meet me  
Have some courtesy  
Have some sympathy and some taste  
Use all your well-learned politesse  
Or Ill lay your soul to waste,  
Pleased to meet you  
Hope you guessed my name,  
But what's puzzling you  
Is the nature of my game"

The man in the light grey suit was as out of place in the junk yard as the ornate goblet in his hands.  
He was in his fifties, handsome and well-preserved for his age - at least until he took off his sunglasses to reveal ice cold eyes totally devoid of emotion.  
He stood motionless in the glaring sun.

Jerome du Lac was furious, but it didn't show.  
His daughter was supposed to be here, but she wasn't.  
Nobody was here – and the old, dilapidated house was so thoroughly warded that he and his demonic powers couldn't even enter to snoop around.  
He lost one servant to a very devious booby trap already. His servants were all hand-picked and exceedingly loyal. He couldn't risk losing more of them, so he had called off the search of the house.  
No, this was not how things were supposed to run.

Jerome still couldn't believe he had fallen for that stupid funeral the Council had organized to "bury" his daughter. Marge, the Council's seer, sobbing on Dominic's arm? PLEASE! He should have smelled a rat instantly.  
Still, he had damaged Catherine so thoroughly back then that it had seemed more likely that she had died than that she would be able to survive.  
He smiled as he recalled that night of pure pleasure.  
How he had cut into her white skin, how she had screamed.  
But then she suddenly had been spotted with two young man in some backwater town and he had rejoiced.  
If he got her back, he could also lure the demon he had promised her to back.  
And if he had that demon, he would be able to gain absolute power.  
He had done a locator spell immediately and indeed, there she was. If only his men had been faster then, he could have had her already. But at least he could keep tabs on her and had followed her with more locator spells to this place.  
He was taking care of business personally now, she would not be able to elude him much longer.

He placed the goblet on a rusty oil drum, took out a small knife and cut into his wrist. He let the drops spill into the goblet and said the spell. The familiar gravelly voice said: "Who is it you seek?"  
"Catherine du Lac."  
The silence stretched for too long.  
"I cannot find anyone by that name."  
"Is she hidden?" Jerome asked angrily.  
"No, there is no fog surrounding her location. She is not there at all."  
"Are you telling me she is dead?" Jerome spat out angrily.  
"She is not there."  
Useless. Totally useless. 'Not there'? What was that supposed to mean? How could she have vanished? It had to mean she was dead.  
Jerome swore as he emptied out the goblet.  
After that fake funeral, he had tried to lure the demon back with various other sacrifices. The thing wouldn't have any of them.  
When Catherine was spotted, Jerome had hoped to be close to fulfilling his dream again, only to have this hope squashed again now.

He returned to New Orleans late at night and marched straight down to the vault in the basement.  
As he opened the locked and warded door, his anticipation grew.  
Inside the vault, there were four demons chained to the walls, each at one tip of a large, elaborate pentagram on the floor.  
The fifth spot was empty.  
Jerome stood in the middle of the pentagram and spoke the words of the ritual.  
With the final word of command, the power started to flow out of the demons and into him.  
He moaned with pleasure.  
It was an exhilarating sensation, better than anything he had ever encountered in his life. And it never grew pale, either, it was always as good as it had been the very first time.  
He was swaying in ecstasy.

When it was all over, he went to look at his demons.  
Jerome could feel their hate roll over him, but he didn't care.  
He was stronger than any one of them and the bonds that held them were unbreakable.  
The black-eyed demon was inside the body of a young, beautiful woman. She smiled seductively at him. Jerome had let her loose a few times to enjoy her, but that excitement paled next to the sensation he had just experienced, so he wasn't interested right now.  
The red-eyed demon tried to speak, but his bonds forbade it. Jerome smiled a nasty smile at the creature's rage and discomfort.  
Green eyes, as usual, wouldn't look at him and purple eyes shot him a look of pure, unadulterated hatred.  
He loved his little menagerie. They were so fascinating – each of them with their special set of powers, adding their different taste to his cocktail.  
And he would find a way to get the missing specimen without his daughter as bait.

Chapter 7

"You're the one who makes me happy honey  
You're the sun who makes me shine  
When you're around I'm always laughing  
I want to make you mine"

Cat twisted her hair into a bun and hummed that old Divinyls tune, grinning.

"I close my eyes  
And see you before me  
Think I would die  
If you were to ignore me  
A fool could see  
Just how much I adore you  
I get down on my knees  
I'd do anything for you"

Dean was asleep.  
A nice view he presented, too, the way he was sprawled on the bed on his stomach.  
Hells bells, but that man had one damn fine butt!  
Catherine chuckled as she went down the stairs.

Sam was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop, while Maman Fontaine was cooking up a storm. Cat gave the old woman a hug, sniffed the scent rising from the jambalaya on the stove appreciatively, then sat at the table next to Sam.  
"Can I use your laptop for a while, Sam? There's something I need to try out."  
"Sure." He pushed it over to Catherine.  
Maman Fontaine put the jambalaya in the oven and walked out.  
She entered a URL in the browser. A log-in screen appeared.  
Cat sat there for a long time, just staring at the screen.  
She had done this so many times before.  
All the information that lay behind the access control… it would have made her life so much easier in the past. But with the Council ban against her family, this well of knowledge had been closed to her.  
"Forgot the password?" Sam asked curiously.  
"No. Just not sure it will work." said Catherine, doubt clearly showing in her voice. She shook herself, then determinedly placed her splayed right hand on the keyboard. A bright glow formed around here hand and the screen changed.

"Welcome, Ms. Catherine," a polite voice said.  
It came from a figure on the screen. A pale, slim man in an old-fashioned butler's livery stood in what looked like a library.  
"My name is Gregory. How can I be of service?"  
"Hello Gregory. Might I take a look at the Hunters' Genealogy?"  
"Certainly. Should I look for a specific family line?"  
"That would be very kind. The Fortezza line, if you could?"  
"Ah, yes, of course. There is it is. A curious line. We almost lost it in 1582…."  
"Could you send it to this computer, please?"  
"Yes, Ms. Catherine. Is there anything else I can do for you?"  
"No, not right now, Gregory. Thank you kindly for your help."  
"It was a pleasure to finally meet you. I wish you a good day, Ms. Catherine."  
"Goodbye, Gregory."  
With that, she took her palm off the keyboard and the library was gone in favour of the log-in screen.

Catherine opened the file with the Fortezza family tree. Sam was looking a little stunned, but extremely interested.  
"Look, Sam, here's Davide."  
"Wow… this is a huge family tree. It will take forever to find our family, if they are even on there."  
Catherine laughed.  
"No, it really won't. REVEAL!"  
At this command, a red line started to form at Davide's name and slowly made its way across the page, until it came to the name Dean Winchester at the far end of it.  
"I can't believe it, this is…. GREAT!"  
"Yes."  
"I just don't know… let me see where the line starts again. I mean, Davide died, right… so…"  
Catherine moved her hand and the page moved back to where Davide's name stood. Next to Davide was the name Clara Bonaventura.  
Underneath them both and connected by two lines coming from them, stood Guiseppe Bonaventura and the date January 15th, 1581.  
"Mystery solved, I guess, "said Catherine drily.  
"You're, uh, not going to hold that against Dean, are you? I mean, not after over 400 year, right?"  
Catherine laughed and shook her head.

Dean buttoned his shirt as he ran down the stairs. He could hear Catherine laugh in the kitchen. It did funny things to his stomach. He smiled broadly.  
He walked into the kitchen and saw Cat and Sammy bent over the laptop.  
"Hey, what's up?"  
"You're such a dog, Dean, " laughed Sam and turned to face his brother.  
"What did I do?"  
Catherine grinned at him and said: "Nothing much. You just slept around a bit and thus made sure we could meet again in the here and now. Come here and kiss me, Casanova!"  
"I don't understand a word you're saying, except the kiss me bit and there your wish is my command, " said Dean grandly and bent down to kiss his woman.

Coming soon

"You know I'm a crawlin' kingsnake baby, and I rules my den  
You know I'm a crawlin' kingsnake baby, and I rules my den  
I don't want you hangin' around my mate,  
Wanna use her for myself"

It was the final showdown between Catherine and her father  
In the darkness, things were stirring…….


	5. Chapter 5

_**Episode 5 - There's a dog at your back step**_

*Soundtrack *

Metallica – Low Man's Lyric  
Rockin' Dopsie, Jr. and the Zydeco Twisters – Jambalaya  
Harry Connick jr. – Elijah Rock  
Prince – Scandalous  
Sam Carr's Delta Jukes - Crawling King Snake  
Dr. Hook – Sexy eyes  
David Bowie – Look Back in Anger  
David Bowie – Rebel Rebel  
Amy Winehouse – Some Unholy War  
Mike Batts – Ride to Agadir  
Police – King of Pain  
Beatles – Here Comes the Sun  
Counting Crows – Goodnight Elizabeth  
Queen – Flash  
Louis Armstrong – St. James Infirmary Blues

Chapter 1

"And I cry, to the alleyway  
Confess all to the rain  
But I lie, lie straight to the mirror  
The one I've broken, to match my face

The trash fire is warm  
But nowhere safe from the storm  
And I can't bear to see  
What I've let me be  
So wicked and worn"

Remy was keeping watch on the du Lac mansion.  
Jerome du Lac had returned to the mansion late last night and ever since, Remy had felt uneasy.  
The man was well known for his dead accurate locator spells, so Catherine was no longer safe.  
Remy just wasn't sure that that man she had bonded with was really the right one and that he really would change everything, as Catherine believed.  
Well, you had to hand it to the guy, though, he had gone through with the ritual, even though from the look of him, it had damn near killed him.  
Remy lit another cigarette.  
The house was quiet.  
Remy had felt some powerful mojo going on right after that creep had returned. He hadn't liked the feel of it one bit. But now, everything was deceptively peaceful around the old mansion.  
The day was getting hotter by the minute.  
Remy hoped he wouldn't have to stick around much longer.

Mike O'Meare arrived to relieve him from his watch a few minutes later. Mike was an elderly Healer from Algiers, a very reliable man and a good friend.  
"Anything out of the ordinary?"  
"Nah. If anything, it's too quiet. Take care of yourself, Mike."  
"You, too. By the way, Sarah Fisher from Metairie's taking the next shift. They're all volunteering, the whole magic community. We all want to see that man brought to justice."  
"If the signs don't lie, it will happen – and soon. See ya, Mike."  
"See ya, Remy."

"Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and file' gumbo  
'Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio  
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o  
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou"

Bobby was grinning at Maman Fontaine. "This is THE best jambalaya I've ever had."  
"Nice to be appreciated. Here, take some more." Maman said, smiling.  
The others were eating in silence. '  
Dean didn't think he had ever had anything this good before. It was eons removed from the stuff he usually ate. Given the taste explosion in his mouth right now, if he never had another greasy burger in his life, it would be too soon. Well, okay… maybe that special bacon cheeseburger near… ah, never mind.

The door opened and Remy walked in.  
"Did you eat it all, or is there any left for me?"  
"Hi Remy. Plenty left. When have you ever not gotten your share at my table, boy?"  
"Never, Maman. But then again, plenty of people I don't know around the table. People who never sampled your food. Who knows how much they might eat?"  
"Ah, shut up and eat already, boy."  
She ladled a generous helping of steaming seafood, chicken and andouille jambalaya on his plate.  
"Tu sais que je t'adore, Maman!" said Remy with a mock flirtatious look.

Catherine was very quiet. She was still trying to make sense of the change in her witch's mark.  
She could understand why her father's line had been taken away and was heartily glad about it, but the change in the very foundation of her magical powers was another matter entirely.  
It shouldn't have happened.  
She should have been healed, her powers returned to normal, nothing more, nothing less.  
"Catherine, chere, you should be eating, not playing with your food," said Maman Fontaine with a meaningful sideways glance at Dean.  
"Anything wrong, Cat?" he asked right on cue.  
"No, just… thinking about something."  
She fell silent again, then suddenly turned to Remy.  
"Have you ever heard of someone's witch's mark changing after bonding, Remy?"  
"Well, duh, it always does. The family line changes, that's totally normal."  
"I know THAT," said Catherine irritably, "I mean the rest of it. Power signature and so on."  
"No. Can't, can it now? I mean, that's what you are and it doesn't ever change."  
"It changed." said Catherine in a flat voice.  
"No way."  
Catherine pushed up the sleeve and showed Remy her right arm. On her skin, the pattern appeared.  
Remy had spent a whole rainy afternoon a decade ago memorizing the swirly pattern. He still knew it by heart, so he spotted the differences right away.  
He whistled.  
"Never heard of anything even remotely like this before. Congrats, bébé, looks like you were upgraded to the next level." Remy said, keeping his voice light, but his eyes were grave.

Bobby, Sam and Dean were looking at the whole exchanged with puzzled looks on their faces.  
Sam leaned over and touched the pattern on Catherine's arm curiously.  
"It just appeared. Wow."  
"Yes, Sam. It's called a witch's mark and it's not something we usually go around showing to people. It tells about who we are, you know. What our lineage is and what our powers are. It used to say that I'm a Fire Elemental."  
"And now?" asked Bobby.  
Catherine was chewing her lip and didn't say a thing.  
"Now it says that she's a leyline witch. I can't believe it, Catherine. How the hell can that happen?" Remy asked incredulously.  
Dean looked at Cat. She had said that leyline witches were the most powerful of all witches.  
"I don't know. Martha had told me that my powers would change when I find Dean and we bond. But I never expected this."  
"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Sam asked.  
"Oh, believe me, it is a fucking awesome thing," said Remy, "Or at least I hope it is. Leyline witches have the power to tap directly into the source of all magic."  
"And let's not forget that more than half the leyline witches either go insane or go black. Yeah, I'm really ecstatic about this." snapped Catherine.  
It had gnawed on her ever since she'd seen the new pattern for the first time.  
Not much was really known about leyline witchcraft.  
There were very few witches who got that much power and, as Catherine had said, they were prone to going insane or turning evil. It was rumoured that the pull of the power was so strong that it took exceptional strength to stay rooted in the world, instead of giving in to the magic.  
Dean took her hand in his underneath the table and gently squeezed.  
She could do it, he was sure, without going insane or doing a full-on Darth Vader.  
He had never met anyone with such strength of heart and mind before.

"You can call my rock in the mornin'  
Call him late at night  
He's always with me  
And all my battles he'll fight

When I'm in trouble  
I can call him on the line  
He put a telephone in my heart  
And I can call God anytime"

Chapter 2

"We need a plan."  
Bobby dumped an armful of maps, notes and whatnots on the table after lunch.  
"Here's everything I could find on the house and all the ideas Sam and I came up with during research."  
He looked around the table.  
"So, how do we do this?"  
"I can't take you with me," said Catherine softly, "It would be far too dangerous."  
"Bull. You don't honestly think we let you do this alone?"  
"Bobby is right, chere. There will be more people than just your father to deal with and I can tell you right here and right now that there will be a lot more people on your team than those already in this room." Maman Fontaine said decisively.  
"And they won't take a no for an answer, ma petite," said Remy.  
Bobby unrolled a floor plan of the mansion and asked: "What's the best way in?"

Catherine looked around.  
They were all obviously fiercely determined to be a part of this. How was she supposed to keep them all safe and stop her father from completing his demon collection at the same time? She couldn't risk any of them getting hurt.  
Dean was intently scanning the floor plan.  
"Sammy, this looks like a good way in, what do you think?" He pointed to a small door at the back of the mansion.  
"No, baby, that's not a good idea. The room behind that door is booby trapped. It's where my father keeps his herbs."  
Catherine pointed at a spot on the far end of the grounds instead.  
"We have to go through the gazebo trapdoor again. The tunnel below leads straight into the basement. Unless my father took the house apart after I broke free last time, he won't know about this." Cat got up to fetch herself a glass of water.  
It had been her grandmother who told her about the tunnel.  
She had talked to the ghost of a slave who had told her about how the Underground Railroad had used the tunnel to smuggle slaves out of the house and down to the bayou and to safety.  
The slave had sworn that none of the du Lacs had ever found out about the tunnel.

The gazebo trapdoor…  
Dean tried to hide his discomfort. He wasn't very keen on going down there again, not after the trials he had had to go through down there.  
"It will be different this time," Cat whispered softly in his ear. "The ritual is complete and she will not be there anymore."  
And while Cat was there near his ear, she took the time for a little nibble and a kiss.  
He really had adorable ears.  
And his neck.. was…  
Catherine found herself growing decidedly hot and bothered over body parts she had never even paid much attention to with other people.

"Whisper a question  
With my body I'll scream a reply  
Anything's acceptable  
Just ask me and I'll try it  
2 hell with hesitation  
2 hell with the reasons why"

Dean fought the urge to get up and drag Cat upstairs for more one on one action.  
All it took was one touch like that and he was on fire and there was only one way to put it out.  
He looked up at her.  
The answering spark in her eyes told him she knew exactly what he wanted. She smiled ruefully at him, put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed, then sat down again.

Remy went off the phone.  
"Got them all. We'll meet at the mansion tonight at 10 pm."  
"I still don't think it's right that we endanger the whole magical community of New Orleans like that," said Catherine.  
"Interested in my opinion?" Bobby asked.  
"Sure, why wouldn't I be?"  
"Haven't exactly been behind you 100% in the past." said Bobby quietly.  
"Bygones." Catherine smiled at him.  
"Okay then. They live here, they know you, they know your father and what he did and still does."  
"Loyalties are a wonderful thing, Bobby, but this is not the time for them."  
"Your father is a danger to the entire community and even if you disregard any loyalties they might feel towards you, getting rid of him is in the best interest of each and every single one of them. So let them help."  
"You have a point there," conceded Cat.  
"There is only one thing I would demand of you." Bobby looked determinedly at her.  
"What?"  
"You need to tell us all what to expect. You need to tell us everything you know about what your father does, how he siphons those demonic powers."

The room had filled with people in the meantime. Mike O'Meare had arrived with a voodoo priest called Antoine and an Air Elemental named Claire.  
Remy greeted them cordially and told them that the thing was going down this very night.

Catherine took a deep breath and started to describe the vault where the demons were chained, the pentacle on the floor and the spell her father used.  
She described which species of demons he had already trapped there and that he would gain almost unlimited power, should he succeed in trapping a fifth species to fill the last empty spot of the pentacle.  
"I don't know how to undo or even break that spell. It's very powerful dark magic."  
"Maybe you don't even have to," said Sam.  
"How do you mean?"  
"Maybe it would be enough to kill the demons. Maybe when they are gone and your father doesn't get a refill ever so often, it will all be over."  
"He could easily trap more demons, Sam," said Catherine.  
"Only if he's alive." Dean said with so much menace in his voice that every person in the room turned to look at him.  
"I mean, Cat, you weren't planning on keeping the bastard alive, were you? Not after all he did to you?"  
"I… I had hoped I wouldn't have to, Dean." whispered Catherine, her face drawn.  
"Well, never you fear, kitten, you won't have to. That son of a bitch is MINE." growled Dean.

"You know you caught me crawlin' baby  
When the, when the grass was very high  
I'm just gonna keep on crawlin' now baby until the day I die,  
because I'm a crawlin' kingsnake baby, and I rules my den  
Don't you hangin' around my mate, wanna use her for myself"

Jerome du Lac was so incredibly close to success.  
If the demon inched just a little bit closer to the bait, he would have it.  
Its eyes glowed pink in the dark undergrowth. Leaves rustled as it slid closer to the young priest Jerome had chained to the ground in the middle of the clearing.  
Yes, the bitch loved innocent flesh and as it smelled the chance of defiling someone who had given his life to the service of God, it grew ecstatic. He hoped it would grow careless, too.  
The body it was travelling in looked worn and ready to be dumped, which seemed to make success even more feasible. It was visibly weakened by the daylight and its dying body.  
He smiled a nasty smile.  
He had tried to lure demons to him with finesse, with knowledge, with every trick in the book, but had had no success. Suddenly, this pitiful thing had all but fallen into his lap. He hadn't been able to believe his luck when one of his informants told him about seeing a severely weakened demon with pink eyes.  
The demon slithered closer to the priest.  
It was ready to jump ship any second now…

As Jerome watched from his hiding place, black smoke started to belch from the demon's cracked lips. It made its way to the young priest and crawled into his mouth and nose.  
He tried to resist, but it was futile. After a few seconds of bucking and yelling, he lay still.  
Jerome dropped the metal devil's trap from the trees above. It came to rest around the young priest's prone body.  
Jerome walked over.  
"Hello there, sunshine. I have been waiting for you a long, long time... and now you're mine!"  
The demon snarled at him.

Jerome quickly did the binding spell and then took the demon home.  
Later tonight, he would perform the ritual that would make this demon the pivotal part of his little collection and would endow him with powers untold.  
But first, he would celebrate with a nice meal chez Galatoires.  
Crawfish Etouffée, he thought.  
Yes, that seemed like the right choice.

Chapter 3

"Can we go for a drive?" Catherine asked. She felt caged, stifled, aching for a breath of fresh air.  
"Yeah, sure." Dean hadn't been able to think about much except how he could find a way to be alone with Cat for a while, ever since she had kissed an erogenous zone behind his ear he hadn't even known he possessed.  
"I'll go tell Bobby."  
Catherine ran off to the kitchen and motioned for Bobby to come to the hall.  
"Bobby, Dean and I need some alone time. We'll go for a drive. And yes, we will be careful," she added with a smile, interpreting Bobby's expression spot on.  
"Okay, kid, just… be back before the others get antsy, will ya?"  
Catherine nodded and went back to Dean.

They were driving through the hot and humid afternoon. Catherine gave Dean directions, taking them up route 51 near Ponchatoula Creek.  
They found a nice, secluded spot on a byway and parked the Impala in the shade. They sat in silence for a while, strangely shy.  
Catherine suddenly started to laugh.  
"What?"  
"I just realized that I have never parked with a guy before." Cat grinned.  
Dean also started to laugh and took her in his arms.  
"Not even with Remy? I mean, he's the classic parking type!"  
"So are you, Dean Winchester!"  
Still laughing, he started to plant kisses on her neck.  
The laughter stopped as the mood changed and the kisses grew less playful and more intense.  
"I need to touch you," gasped Dean and started to peel Cat's top off. He finished in record time and tossed it on the backseat.  
"Likewise."  
Dean's shirt went the same way. Cat raked her hands over his torso. She was by no means blind to his shortcomings; still he was perfect to her, in every way. He was just the right height, the right shoulder breadth and… the right size, too, if truth be told. He just fit her perfectly.  
Dean's thoughts echoed hers, but grew more indistinct by the second, as instinct and the fire burning inside of him took over.  
They moved as one.

"Ooh your magic cast a spell, it didn't take long 'til we fell and we knew it  
No more lonely nights for me, this is how its gonna be  
Sexy eyes, moving 'cross the floor, couldn't want for more, sexy eyes  
Sexy eyes, getting down with you, I wanna move with you, sexy eyes"

They got back to Maman Fontaine's house around 7 pm. Dinner was being prepared. The smell was delicious.  
"Are you always eating down here?" Dean asked incredulously.  
"Well, we do like our food and we know there's more to life than grease ball burgers." said Cat mildly.  
"Well, burgers don't look half as appetizing to me today than they did a couple of days ago, I have to admit," said Dean with a smile.  
"Well, get ready for another treat, then, because this smells like Maman's renowned Creole mustard baked chicken!" Cat said.  
Dean stomach growled.

Dean went upstairs to take a shower and Catherine stepped out into the garden.  
The task ahead was looming over her.  
She sat down on the bench under the night-blooming jasmine tree with her earphones firmly in place. She chose Bowie – nothing like that man's voice to calm her down. She put Look Back in Anger on loop.

""You know who I am," he said  
The speaker was an angel  
He coughed and shook his crumpled wings  
Closed his eyes and moved his lips  
"It's time we should be going""

A hand brushed her shoulder, cool fingers were pulling the earphones out.  
Cat jumped.  
"It will be a night to remember."  
"Do you always have to do this, Rafe?"  
"Do what?"  
"Sneak up on me like that."  
"I am sorry, Catherine, if I have done anything wrong. Forgive me."  
"Could you, maybe, come up with something like a knock next time? Something to announce your imminent appearance? A little snap? Or even a crackle pop?"  
"I will consider if such a thing is possible."  
Cat sighed. Even after centuries of interacting with people, Rafe still managed to sound stilted and strange. Not to mention that humour eluded him completely.  
"Is there anything special that made you come, or did you miss me?"  
Rafe tilted his beautiful head and seriously considered if his visit had been prompted by some ephemeral human emotion or factual necessity.  
"I was just pulling your leg, Rafe. I know you only come to see me if there is something important going on."  
"I cannot deny that seeing you and talking to you is pleasing to me, yet there is a reason for my visit."  
Rafe paused.  
"Your father must die tonight. I understand that you have misgivings about this, but there is no way to end the perversity he started and leave him alive."  
"I'm not certain, anyway, if I could stop Dean from killing the man. He seems hell bent on avenging me, whether I want it or not."  
"He puzzles me."  
Yes, Dean would puzzle him. Catherine almost laughed out loud. No way could Rafe ever comprehend the wild and wooly mix that was Dean.  
"He will do anything for you. That fact makes me… happy," said Rafe softly.  
"Rafe… Have you been forgiven for meddling in my affairs?" Catherine asked.  
"Yes. I have been warned, however, not to be so negligent of my responsibilities again. But it is very clear to everyone that I will stray again from my duty and the path I have been told in no uncertain terms to follow, if your life should be in danger again like that."  
"Quite the rebel, huh?"  
Rafe smiled his lovely smile at her and sang softly: "They put you down, they say I'm wrong…"  
Cat joined in: "You tacky thing, you put them on."  
They both laughed.  
Rafe went serious again very fast.  
" Your father has found the last demon. You must make it to the vault before midnight to stop him."  
Catherine swallowed hard. That was bad news indeed and it explained why Rafe had come. The world might be at peril.  
"I count on you."  
Cat felt cool lips brush her cheek and then he was gone.  
Music was drifting from the earphones that lay forgotten on the bench next to her. Bees hummed among the flowers.

"(Waiting so long, I've been waiting so, waiting so)  
Look back in anger, driven by the night  
Till you come"

Chapter 4

Catherine still sat on the bench in the garden when Dean came down from his shower. She was staring into space, twirling her earphones in her hands.  
The expression in Rafe's lavender eyes was still worrying her. He was not usually prone to displays of emotion, but he had looked anxiously at her for a long time.  
Dean thought Cat looked extremely concerned.  
He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. She was very tense. He lightly massaged the spot between her shoulder blades.  
"Cat, what's up?"  
"I was just told that my father caught the fifth demon. Now he can complete the ritual and we only got until midnight to stop him."  
"Should we leave earlier than planned?"  
"No. I think the deeper my father is invested in the preparations for the ritual, the better our chance to get close enough to do damage."  
"We'll stop him, Cat. There isn't a doubt in my mind that we will."  
Dean looked at her with quiet determination.  
Cat felt ludicrously comforted, even though she couldn't help but feel that a vast part of Dean's confidence was simply due to the fact that he didn't have a clear enough idea of what they were letting themselves in for. Still, she knew she would react in just the same manner if their roles were reversed.

"If my man was fighting  
Some unholy war  
I would be behind him  
Straight shook up beside him  
With strength he didn't know  
It's you I'm fighting for  
He can't lose with me in tow  
I refuse to let him go  
At his side and drunk on pride  
We wait for the blow"

They went inside.  
The kitchen was stuffed with people and dinner was in full swing.  
Maman Fontaine pressed full plates in their hands and shooed them to two empty chairs at the head of the table.  
"There now, my lambs, eat!"  
She put an ice cold bottle of beer in front of Dean and a glass of ice tea in front of Catherine.  
"Well, chere, what are you looking so down for?" asked Maman.  
"The scenario has changed, " Catherine announced tersely. "My father has found the fifth demon and we need to be there to stop him before midnight tonight."  
"Shall we leave right away?" asked Bobby, looking at his chicken dish with regret. Holy guacamole, but that woman knew how to cook.  
"No, we leave at 10, as planned. It won't help to be there too early. The closer he gets to his big moment, the less attentive he will be to the world around him."  
They finished their meal in tense silence.

"Though they were waiting  
And they were fifty to our ten  
They were easily outnumbered by a smaller force of men  
As the darkness was falling  
They were soon to realize  
We were going to relieve them of their godforsaken lives"

It was quite the caravan that set out to save the world that night.  
They hid their cars in a silent, overgrown byway close to the mansion's gardens.  
Catherine led them to the gazebo and opened the trapdoor. One after the other, they climbed down the ladder.  
Dean was fighting his rising panic as he went down. At the foot of the ladder, however, he was dumbstruck. The tunnel looked nothing like it had in his memory. Its walls were not hewn out of a rock face, as they had appeared to him before, they were earthen and stabilized by wooden planks and tree trunks.  
He took a deep breath and walked after the others, bringing up the rear. He hated being this far away from Cat, but when she had asked, he couldn't say no.  
The group pooled in the flashlight glow in front of a door.  
"This door leads into the mail building. The entrance to the vault is across the building in the West wing. Sarah and Antoine, can you stay here and secure our exit way?"  
The two nodded.

Catherine opened the door and they silently crept into the basement of the mansion. They found themselves in an unlit storage room, coming up behind an old cupboard.  
Catherine led them up the stairs.  
It was 11:30, they had half an hour left.  
The came into a grand hall, with a big stairwell leading up to the upper floors. Catherine motioned for them to walk to the right.  
A strained voice whispered suddenly: "Cathy Anne…"  
A woman stood in the darkness at the foot of the stairs.  
Catherine stopped dead. Without turning her head, she whispered back: "Go back to your rooms, mother, and do what you do best - pretend there is nothing wrong here."  
"But…"  
The woman raised her hand pleadingly.  
Cat turned. Her eyes were emotionless and her voice was flat and cold.  
"I have nothing to say to you. After all that happened, I don't even KNOW you. Go. Back. To. Your. Rooms."  
Dean thought the woman looked pitiful.  
She was very skinny and looked not all there. In fact, Dean thought he had seen ghosts that had had more life in them.  
But he didn't know what kind of a role she had played in what Cat's father had done to her, so he decided to put his pity firmly back on the shelf until he knew better.  
The woman slowly walked up the stairs, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

They came to the door that would lead them down to the vault.  
Catherine took a deep breath.  
She told Sam and Bobby to stay up there, hidden behind an ornate Chinese screen to watch the door. They didn't like the idea one bit, but understood that someone had to make sure that nobody could sneak up on the ones that went down.  
Cat looked at Remy. He nodded. Remy knew what they were walking into. It meant a lot to her that he was still determined to go down there with her.  
Dean gave her the eyebrow. It made her smile, but her worries remained. She wished she could leave Dean up here with Sam and Bobby. No, scratch that, she wished she could've left him at Maman Fontaine's house altogether. He needed to be safe for her to feel even marginally relaxed. Cat drew a deep, calming breath.  
She nodded at them and they walked down the dark stairs.

Chapter 5

"I have stood here before inside the pouring rain  
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain  
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign  
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain"

It smelled of sulfur and frankincense.  
They could hear someone talking, it sounded like a poetry recital. The room was stifling hot.  
They reached the entrance to the vault.

Dean couldn't believe his eyes. Man, what a get-up.  
Five demons were chained to the walls of a narrow alcove beyond the main room.  
Each of them was positioned at the tip of an arm of a large pentagram.  
There were glyphs, symbols and spells all over the walls.  
At the center of the pentagram stood a man, his elegant, charcoal grey suit looking odd and out of place down here.  
Must be her father.  
The surge of hatred he felt was like a wave of a toxic, viscous, black flux that washed over him  
Dean's hand went to the small of his back, where he kept his gun.

Jerome du Lac was reading from an old tome in his hands. The words seemed to be French, so there was no way for Dean to tell if he had reached any critical point in the ritual yet.  
He looked over to Remy, who looked pale and fierce, but not in any particular hurry to start acting.  
Dean still didn't like the fact that Remy had been Cat's first man, but hell, he'd be so much happier being her last that he felt inclined to like the man after all. He seemed like a good, decent guy and one he for one felt comfortable about going into a fight like this with.

Catherine's lips were moving, as if she were praying. But then again, maybe she was just rehearsing the spell she intended to use.

_It was there, clear as the day. Catherine sat in front of Sam's laptop and looked through the scans from the Scaglia codex.  
The words stood out to her immediately and, though in Italian, she understood every single word.  
Fight the darkness with the pure light.  
The pure light.  
Yes._

She looked over at Dean and smiled at him.  
Their hands found each other. Who would have thought that so much strength and comfort could be drawn from such a small gesture?  
"We can win this." She mouthed at him.  
He nodded and treated her to another eyebrow, as if to say "told you so, didn't I?".

"Jerome."  
Catherine said the word calmly and not very loudly.  
Her father turned immediately, totally startled.  
"Catherine!"  
He motioned to two of his goons who were standing on either side of him to take them down.  
Remy took goon number one, while Dean went to check what lay behind goon number two.  
"Why did you come, Catherine? You should know by now that my powers are beyond your comprehension."  
"Oh, I comprehend them alright, Jerome, I just think that they are a perversion of magic and not half as brilliant as you seem to think."  
"We shall see, Catherine."

With that, Jerome spat out a few more words in French. Black flames started to run along the lines of the pentacle and the demons started writhing in agony.  
Cat briefly looked at the two men, but they seemed to be doing well in the fight.  
Catherine smiled at her father, closed her eyes and, for the first time in her life, touched a leyline.  
Its power was beyond words. Small wonder people tended to go insane or turn dark side of the force when they felt it. To Catherine, though, it felt like coming home.  
She started to wrap her magic around the leyline's power, opened her eyes and started to sing.  
Her father's first startled and then sneering look almost made her laugh, but she had to concentrate on focusing all that pure power through the song she sang.

"Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,  
and I say it's all right  
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter  
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here  
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun  
and I say it's all right"

It might be a slightly strange choice, but it was the only song about light or the sun that she could come up with on the spur of the moment.  
A pure, powerful, almost painful white light started to flow from her.  
It danced across the room, almost playfully.  
When it touched the black flames, they fizzed and died.  
When it touched the demons, they started to burn.  
When it touched her father, he started to scream.  
He fell to his knees, shaken by cramps. He started to vomit blood and black, stinking lumps, screaming all the way. In the end, he just lay there, twitching.

Catherine finished her song.  
The light returned to her.  
It went through her in a warm, fluid embrace that left her feeling strong and healthy, then it went back into the leyline network, where it belonged.  
Cat released the leyline. She was calm and happy.  
The room was clean.  
Gone was the pentagram, gone were the scrawls on the walls.  
Dean and Remy were standing there, staring. The goons were unconscious, but that didn't seem to matter anymore, as they apparently both tried to understand what they had just witnessed.

Cat turned to them, away from her father.  
She wanted nothing more than to be in the warm, comforting circle of Dean's arms.  
He spread 'em with a grin and she began to walk over.  
Suddenly, Remy yelled something and threw himself between her back and her father.  
The long, thin knife hit him squarely in the chest.  
Catherine screamed and rushed to his side.  
It was no use, no use at all.  
There was nothing anyone could do here. Not even a healer could help her Remy now.  
She held him in her arms and watched the light fade from Remy's eyes.

"I will wait for you in Baton Rouge  
I'll miss you down in New Orleans  
I'll wait for you while she slips in something comfortable  
and I'll miss you when I'm slipping in between  
if you wrap yourself in daffodills  
I will wrap myself in pain  
and if you're the queen of California  
baby I am the king of the rain"

Chapter 6

Dean walked slowly over to Jerome du Lac.  
He took the gun from its hiding place at his back.  
Jerome du Lac started to babble. Pleaded with him, made promises.  
Dean couldn't care less.  
This man did not deserve to live.  
He took aim, dead center on the man's forehead.  
"Don't" said a voice in his head. "How should she live peacefully with the man who shot the man who fathered her. Bad man or not, you cannot do this."  
Oh great, now he was hearing voices again.  
"No, it's not like before. You may call me Rafe and I am an old friend of the family."  
Rafe… the tall guy with the lavender eyes for whom Cat had tossed the ball high in the air as a child.  
"Yes. Trust me."  
Dean pocketed his gun.  
Catherine's father looked at him uncomprehendingly.  
"You don't deserve to be put down. You deserve to suffer and die slowly, a shadow of your former self," Dean spat, then turned to walk over to Cat.

"He's dead, Dean. He can't be dead. He's my Remy. He used to buy me lollipops and he taught me how to ride a bike, Dean. He can't be dead. Please!"  
Catherine was frantic, sobbing, clutching Dean's sleeve. This just couldn't be happening. Remy had been her rock and her shelter for years.  
"Cat…" Dean didn't know what to say, so he just took her in his arms.  
"I couldn't save him, Dean!"  
He gripped her tight and whispered small, calming sounds in her ears.

"Just a man  
With a man's courage  
Nothing but a man  
But he can never fail  
No-one but the pure at heart  
May find the Golden Grail"

She finally calmed down.  
Remy was dead, there was nothing she could do to change it.  
He had died for her.  
It hurt beyond words.  
Dean gently pulled her to her feet. He hated himself for not giving her time to grieve right now, but who knew how many henchmen might be milling into the room any second now.  
"We should leave, kitten."  
"We can't leave him here."  
"No, we can't. Don't worry, I'll carry Remy."  
He steered her towards the stairs, a reassuring hand on the small of her back. Then he turned and hoisted Remy across his shoulders, fireman fashion.  
Sam and Bobby came from their hiding place behind the screen.  
"Find anything?"  
"Nope, Sammy, total washout." said Dean in an undertone, pointedly motioning towards the body he was carrying. "Course we did. It's all over and now we leave."  
"Just like that? But we haven't done anything!"  
"Well, boo-hoo, Bobby. But now we leave."  
"She okay?" Bobby whispered into Dean's ear as he walked after Cat with Remy's body on his shoulders.  
"No. Remy's dead, think she's okay with that?"  
"Shit. Her father?"  
"Left him alive. Killing him seemed too much of a good deed."

As they made their way back to the tunnel, Catherine's mother stepped in their path again.  
"Did you kill him?" she asked, in the same half-dead voice she had used before.  
Not even that question seemed to matter much to her.  
"No. We left what's left of him alive," said Dean. The woman bugged him; his earlier pity was completely gone. There was something deeply unhealthy and distasteful about her.  
"Ah, well…"  
She just stood there.  
Cat forcibly walked past her towards the basement stairs.  
They collected Sarah and Antoine at the tunnel entrance.  
Dean, Sam and Bobby hoisted Remy's body up the steep stairs to the gazebo.  
In the gazebo, Sam took over carrying Remy.  
The group walked back to their cars in silence.

"When I die want you to dress me in straight lace shoes  
I wanna box back coat and a Stetson hat  
Put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch chain  
So the boys'll know that I died standing flat"

Maman Fontaine was crying, holding on to Catherine's arm.  
They had washed Remy's body, put him in his best suit and now they were walking him to the funeral, wearing their Sunday best.  
The band played the St. James Infirmary Blues on the way to St. Patrick's III.  
It was yet another hot and humid day and walking down shade-less Canal Street to the cemetery was like walking the lesser levels of hell.  
The preacher did a good sermon.  
Of course, he knew nothing about what Remy had really been like, but he had understood the message that the deceased had been a valued member of society, a gifted man and good one, too.

On the way back, the dirges were gone and forgotten.  
The band played a happy tune and the congregation was dancing in the streets.  
Remy Chauvin got himself a good and proper N'awlins funeral, no doubt about it.  
And he deserved it, and better things, too.

They sat in Maman Fontaine's house. They had all known things could go badly, they had all known it had been a very high risk deal.  
But somehow, Remy had been blessed with almost mythical good luck. It seemed ludicrous that he should be smitten down by a beaten man.  
Catherine had been silent ever since they had gotten out of the mansion. Dean knew she was blaming herself, however ludicrous it would seem.  
Maman was serving snacks. None of them had eaten since they got back from the mansion.  
Suddenly Cat said: "We have to go back to the cemetery tonight. You have to make sure he… doesn't come back. Can you do that for me?"  
She looked at Sam and Bobby.  
"Sure, Catherine, don't you worry about a thing." said Bobby.

Cat and Dean were standing in Maman's guest bedroom. Dean didn't know what he could do to help, she was so vulnerable.  
Cat sat down on the bed. She silently freed her hair from the bun she'd coiled it into. Then she just sat there, motionless.  
"Do you want me to leave?" Dean asked softly.  
"No, please, can you just hold me, Dean?"  
He held her tight. And hated himself for the fire that was immediately ignited and coursed through his body.  
"Dean, please… " Cat whispered. "Don't think bad of me, please…"  
"What is it, kitten?"  
Cat tugged at Dean's shirt.  
"I need you inside me so badly. Please, Dean."  
They groped at each other, frantically at first, but then they found their rhythm. They started to move in perfect harmony and that was when the healing began.

On the next morning, Bobby was having himself a wonderful breakfast. Sam walked in, yawning.  
Maman Fontaine gave him a plate heaped with delightful things and started to pour coffee.  
"Don't you be holding this against me, honey, but this chicory coffee… it just ain't my cup of tea."  
"Well, Bobby Singer, while you're sitting at my table, you will drink it and you will not complain about it. Right, sweetie?"  
"Yeah, sure." Bobby conceded.  
Dean and Cat walked into the room. Maman pointed to their chairs and started to heap delicious stuff on two plates.  
As they started to eat, Bobby said: "We got a job. Way up in Maine. Friend of mine saw something that looks right up our alley."  
Anything would be better than sitting around counting their losses, so Dean yelled with an enthusiasm he didn't really feel:  
"Okay, dudes, let's go!"


End file.
